The board, in one of its last acts of last Monday's school board meeting, voted, 5-4, to hire Nicole Sherrin Kessler, a Madison, N.J. middle school principal, to review the middle school schedule implemented this year and make recommendations.
Kessler's contract calls for a $150 per hour rate of up to 50 hours. She is the wife of Tuscan School fourth grade teacher Matthew Kessler.
Those in favor of the contract included Board President Beth Daugherty, and members Andrea Wren-Hardin, Stephanie Lawson-Muhammad, Bill Gaudelli, and Sandra Karriem. Opposition came from board members Wayne Eastman, Jeff Bennett, Johanna Wright, and Madhu Pai.
"It's an objective outside view of our middle school schedules," said Daugherty. "To be done by the end of January...to improve the schedule because now there is some frustration with the schedule."
But Wright disagreed, stating: "we already have the people in place ... we should not be spending money for someone from another school to come and tell us what do to."
Bennett echoed that view, saying, "we don't need to hire a consultant to do this."
Lawson-Muhammad supported the hiring, adding, "All consultants are not evil bad people."
Acting Superintendent James Memoli also defended the move: "It's one thing to recognize some of the issues we're having with the schedule and what needs to be fixed, its another thing to be able to technically do that with the parameters we have...we have some issues with wanting to keep some of the things we put together this year...not everyone has that expertise and we can learn a little bit from this person to help us get where we need to go and we need to do it very quickly."
He said the district has been "tinkering" for three years with it.
The review and recommendations are set to be done by the end of January 2015.
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