Former Superintendent Candidate Looks Back At Hoboken

Come July 1, Hoboken will still not have a permanent superintendent. But former candidate Frank Romano, who was picked for the position but withdrew his candidacy in late February, will start working as the new superintendent in Franklin Lakes.  

Romano, who was picked to be the district's new superintendent but withdrew after he and the Board of Education could not agree to the terms of the contract. Hoboken offered Romano a three-year contract, while Romano said he wanted a four-year deal. Superintendents' contracts range between three and five years, he said. 

Hoboken also offered Romano a non-renewal clause of 90 days, while he demanded a non-renewal clause of one year. Romano said that 90 days would not have been sufficient time to find a new job. 

"When the conversation last ended, it was six months," Romano said about the negotiations about the non-renewal clause, but added that that included "substantial give backs" on his part. 

Romano did not want to elaborate on what those give backs exactly entailed. 

Romano said he was given the Franklin Lakes position after he withdrew from Hoboken. He also applied for superintendent jobs in Waldwick and Park Ridge. 

Romano's appointment caused a division in the Board of Education when, during the Feb. 9 meeting, former board member Carrie Gilliard and current board member Maureen Sullivan voted against hiring Romano, arguing that he did not have enough experience for the job. 

Franklin Lakes offered Romano a four-year contract and will pay him $189,000 a year, according to an article in the Fort Lee Suburbanite. Hoboken offered him $190,000 a year. 

In that same article, Romano said he is excited to start working in Franklin Lakes. About Hoboken he was quoted as saying: "It's different from going in and saving kids who may not have had breakfast this morning and are going home to empty homes and apartments. " 

According to the article, Romano said that that doesn't count for all of Hoboken, saying: "The kids that can afford it go to private schools or charter schools. Not everyone in Hoboken is broke. It's a very diverse place, but the schools don't reflect that."

Romano reached out to Patch and School Board President Rose Marie Markle to say that he was misquoted in the article. 

"In my mind and in my heart, the only thing wrong with Hoboken was my negotiation experience," Romano wrote in an e-mail on May 21.

"I'm mortified," he said in a recent phone interview.

Markle said she had not seen the article before she received Romano's e-mail and stressed that she is not in contact with him. "I don't know whether he said it or not," she said. "I've had my own run-in with reporters."

Markle said a Request for Proposal was published in the newspaper this weekend in order to find a search firm that will help Hoboken find its new superintendent. 

In an e-mail to the reporter of the story, Romano wrote to ask that he wouldn't come across "in such a way that it would diminish the good people of Hoboken.  They've had enough turmoil and disservice."