PFA Makes Good on Promise to Back Shallop

They said they would do it and they did. Several key members of the Middletown High School South (HSS) Parent-Faculty Association (PFA) have announced that they will resign from the group after its first school year meeting in October.

The pending resignations come on the heels of the Middletown Township Board of Education’s majority vote last month to of about two-and-a-half years, Anthony Shallop, referred to as Doc.

The PFA membership involved in the mass resignation has accused the board of making an arbitrary, politically-motivated decision in choosing to demote Shallop, a roughly 10-year staffer in the district, back to the science classroom from which he came.

Board President Joan Minnuies has said it was no such decision, but a necessary one, the reasons for which she claimed people would agree with had they been privy to them. But, as a personnel matter, and since Shallop was not terminated completely from the district, the records remain sealed from public view. It was, however, confirmed that there was no legal matter involved, only something that somehow warranted the disciplinary demotion action. “This, in fact,  should have been done months ago,” Minnuies said at the July 20 board meeting.

Shallop was just shy of obtaining tenure in his administrative spot when the demotion recommendation was handed down by Middletown Interim Superintendent Patrick Houston. Houston had retired in December of 2010 after more than 30 years in the district, the last of which were spent as principal of Thompson Middle School. He will be in the spot until mid-October.

Part of the problem the PFA members have is that there has been a “revolving door” of administrators in the district for too long, they have said. And just when they got someone who wants to stay (Shallop) and has a strong sense of commitment to it, he’s ousted, they complained.

Karen Bilbao, the districts most recent superintendent, left prematurely in January.

Thomas Pagano, retired from Oceanport schools, was then on-boarded as interim. Pagano had been slated to be in the interim superintendent spot until January, 2012, but he resigned from it early, right after Middletown Board of Education elections, when four new board members took their seats. That’s when Houston was named to the interim superintendent post.

In the meantime, one of the new board members, Bob Banta, resigned after attending his first and only meeting.

At the July 20 meeting, amidst all of the Shallop scuffle, new board member Sue Griffin was sworn in after being chosen from a pool of roughly a dozen candidates to fill Banta’s unexpired term.

Many of the complaints about Houston’s recommendation to boot Shallop out of the principal position were rooted in the fact that he had barely been on board (about three weeks) as the district’s interim top administrator when he made the recommendation. He had not evaluated Shallop, people complained at the July 20 meeting.

Acknowledging that he had, indeed, not evaluated Shallop when questioned by former board member Rosemarie Stallmeyer, Houston remained committed and felt he was justified in his decision.

PFA members vowed to resign. They have followed through on that promise.

Below is a letter submitted to PFA membership by those leaders:

To HSS PFA Membership,

On Wednesday, July 20 The Middletown Board of Education voted to support the termination of Dr. Shallop as Principal of High School South.  This PFA Executive Board consists of parents that have been long time supporters and volunteers of the Middletown school district.  We feel the action taken by this Board and Interim Superintendent is inconsistent with our principles and educational philosophy.  For this reason, we are stepping down from our PFA positions.

Since it is not our intention to dismantle the South PFA, we have agreed to stay on until the first PFA meeting, scheduled for October 4, with the hope that new parents will take the reins.   The open positions will be two (2) co-presidents, two (2) vice presidents, a treasurer, recording secretary and corresponding Secretary.  Please feel free to contact any of the members below if you have any questions or would like to know the responsibilities of these positions.

We encourage you to stay involved in your child’s education.

Kathy Altland
Dawn Diorio
Rose Stallmeyer
Patty Watters
Joan Antonino
Judy Krivitzky