Schools

Schools Superintendent Bids Farewell to Parsippany

Dr. LeRoy Seitz leaves the school district after serving area students for the past seven years.

The official retirement date for Parsippany Superintendent of Schools LeRoy Seitz is May 15. But his final day is April 23; earned but unused vacation time will cover the remaining time.

An official farewell took place at the April 9 Board of Education meeting. Cake was served and residents, the head of the local teachers' union and Board President Susy Golderer were among those who wished Seitz well in moving into a new chapter of his life.

Naturally, the retiring superintendent has taken stock of his more than 25 years in New Jersey schools, his seven years in Parsippany and the highs and lows he's experienced along the way.

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When our talk begins, Seitz spoke of the challenges he faced as superintendent of the public school system for the largest municipality in Morris County. He mentioned topics one might expect a schools chief to cite: funding, changing regulations, finding meaningful accountability, increasing student achievement.

But he also went into uncharted territory. For the first time, Seitz talked on the record about the contract controversy, the governor's insult and the bickering Board of Education.

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So how much of a distraction was all of the controversy?

Dr. LeRoy Seitz: Any time we are not focused on our objectives—providing a safe school with high student achievement , high performing staff—we're losing. So, it has been a distraction. It has cost us some time. That's the position. I've been doing this a long time and I cannot name a school district where this hasn't occurred.

The governor's call out—the "poster boy" comment—that's pretty unusual.

I certainly think it was inappropriate for the governor to personally attack me, especially when the superintendent in his own town [Mendham] had his contract renewed without comment. But that was a political issue, and I'm not going to get involved in the politics.

Who was the distraction to? That's what a lot of people don't think about. That situation did not distract the teachers or me from doing our jobs, which is to teach the students. It did not affect the daily operations of the school district. The buses ran on time. Food was served. Teachers taught. Coaches were coaching, and students were successful.

It created a separate issue outside of the daily operations of the school, which I think was unfortunate in the way it was handled.

Do you think any good came out of all of this?

Certainly it raises the question of the validity of the salary caps and what effect they will have on the leadership of the New Jersey public schools. That's a good debate to have. I don't have any problem with that. I do think a personal attack is simply lowering the engagement mentality to such a low level. You can react any way you want. I by and large chose not to.

The $220,000 contract from November 2010 started all of this. Why did that agreement go through in the first place?

I believed and the board believed that we had authorization [from then Morris County Executive Superintendent Kathleen Serafino]. They acted on that authorization. The courts will decide whether we did or not.

I was shocked and disappointed when the testimony in the trial that Dr. Serafino is alleged to have destroyed two documents from my file that may have affected the situation. To me, when you have that kind of possible dishonesty in the Department of Education, you have a bigger problem than whatever the superintendent of Parsippany-Troy Hills is making in salary and benefits.

The good news is, if you don't look at what occurred at the board meetings and at county, state and national levels, you'll see that in terms of affecting the district, it did nothing. Sure, it brought some people to meetings. But you go from the day that occurred in November 2010 until today: What has been negatively affected in the district other than my reputation? My reputation was established long before the governor made his comments, and my reputation still is a good reputation. I look to my colleagues throughout the state in schools and board members I've worked with. They still see it as a good reputation. In my opinion it was just a political situation that hopefully will be resolved within the next six months to a year and then put aside. 

Do you see this matter having lingering effects on education in New Jersey?

I still think the big issue is how effective are the salary caps and what are the short and long term impacts of the leadership leaving our state? We talk about our students, our best students, leaving the state. We talk about ways of making it more attractive for them to stay in-state, to go to Rutgers. And what do we do at the public school level?  We create a situation where we're driving our leaders out of the state. Someone needs to look at that. 

What are you most proud of?

On a professional level, being able to develop a professional, respectful, caring relationship with our teachers, support staff and administrators. There's nothing better than that and there's nothing that's going to keep the district moviing forward than that.

Getting the buses to run on time: I remember the first day of school in 2007 was a mess. When I was meeting with our PTA presidents, they said, "Don't worry, it's always like that." And I said, no, that's not the way it should be. It should be fixed. Made some adjustments in bus routes and start times, and now the buses run on time.

We had problems with price gouging, in my opinion. For bus services we went out and contracted with a new vendor, and we've had high-quality buse service from STA since then. They donate the buses for Project Graduation every year and are a partner with us. That certainly is a plus people may not think of right away, but when children get to school on time, that's a much better way to start the day than three or for buses running late. It was a smalll thing, but a significant thing.

Our replacements of some of the principals, some of the senior administrators was very successful. ... We had a fulltime director of transportation costing us $90,000-$100,000 a year. Now we have a part-time individual. Costs us half that—and yet the buses are running on time. The improvement in the maintenance of our buses was a big plus. We had concerns, now those concerns are behind us. 

Anything dealing with technology has been a  major accomplishment. The biggest long term accomplishment is the Parent Portal and bringing all of our students' information into a computerized database system. Mr. Barry Haines, our director of technology, has played a vital role in helping us create a vision for the district and having the ability to make that vision a reality. A lot of the credit for this success goes to Mr. Haines and his crew and he deserves kudos for all he's done.

Your relationship with the Board of Education has been anything but dull.

The board sitting at that time saw the vision, which is why we're here today. You have to give kudos to those folks as well. 

You know, despite the bickering that goes on at board meetngs, the board has been very supportive of the things we've done. It's just part of the job when there's bickering, but they've done a really good job. 


You started teaching in Lehigh Valley, Pa., in 1970. Why did you get into education?

It was something that I thought I would enjoy. And I did enjoy working in the classroom with students. But after a few years, I wanted more challenges. That's the best way to describe it. I was in a situation where I was able to get an advanced degree in administration. If I had been in a different part of the country, I may not have been able to do that. But at that point I was able to look around at options open to me. Lehigh University was there and I could get a masters degree, so that's what I did.

When I got to administration, I liked it. And then I was able to get into the University of Pennsylvania [doctoral] program. Fortunately I've had a lot of great mentors along the way who have been very influential and helpful to me and continued to expand my roles and responsibilities in education.

It's just been a lot of fun. I really love what I'm doing. That's why when someone comes to the microphone [during the public comment portion of a school board meeting] and they're a little hostile or aggressive, or they're raising a concern that may be not that relevant at the moment, you have patience. You realize your goal is not that conversation, your goal is to do what's necessary to move the district forward. At the end of the day, it's about providing a safe environment with a high-performing workforce and high student achievement.

Just keep those goals in mind and recognize and value the people you're working with.


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