Around Toms River: School District Faces Superintendent Dilemma

TOMS RIVER, NJ — The Toms River Regional Board of Education is continuing to look for a solution to a dilemma it faces: who will serve as the district's superintendent starting Jan. 1?

The board last week refused a proposal to delay the retirement of David Healy — a delay that the majority of the board requested of Healy — because of disruptions in the process of hiring a new superintendent and because of the ongoing challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.

The school district is returning to hybrid instruction Monday, after two weeks of remote instruction because of a sharp increase in coronavirus cases that wreaked havoc with staffing and the contact tracing the district is required to carry out. Read more: Toms River Schools To Return To In-Person Learning A Week Early

Healy announced in September that he would retire as of Dec. 31; at the request of several board members, he agreed to push the date back to June 30. A 3-3 tie with three abstentions rejected the plan. The district must have an interim superintendent in place by Jan. 1 or it faces a potential takeover by the state Department of Education. Read more: Toms River BOE Rejects Retirement Delay For Superintendent

Coronavirus update

The number of coronavirus cases in Toms River continues to climb along with the numbers in Ocean County and statewide. All 21 New Jersey counties are in the orange "high risk" category due to the rates of transmission of the virus.

As of Sunday, Ocean County had 23,883 people who have had positive PCR tests, up 2,112 from the 20,073 on Nov. 29. Toms River has 366 new positive cases in that time, with 3,854, up from 3,488 on Nov. 29, according to the Ocean County Health Department.

The number of deaths have begun to increase as well. On Nov. 4, there had been 1,007 deaths from the coronavirus in Ocean County, and 172 in Toms River. As of Sunday, there have been 1,088 deaths countywide, and 181 in Toms River, according to the county health department.

Statewide, New Jersey now has more than 368,000 cases since March, including 6,046 new ones on Sunday, according to the state Department of Health COVID-19 website. As of Sunday, 3,241 people were hospitalized due to the coronavirus, with 622 in intensive care and 396 patients on ventilators, according to the state COVID-19 website. There are 991 hospitalized in the Central region of the state, which includes Ocean, Monmouth, Middlesex, Mercer, Somerset and Hunterdon counties.

The state has not provided information on how many people have recovered as there is no tracking of cases based solely on positive tests, or of people who are discharged from the hospital.

Coming up

The Toms River Township Council is scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday. The meeting is broadcast live on the township website (click here). The agenda is posted online.

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• Toms River Man Charged After Attempted Suicide By Cop: Chief

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