KEARNY –
Soon he’ll be trading in his Kardinal logo for that of a Panther.
Michael DeVita has resigned his job as business administrator/board secretary with the Kearny Board of Education to take a similar post with the Cedar Grove public schools.
DeVita, whose contract with the KBOE was renewed only a few weeks ago for a base salary of $149,908 plus $3,500 in longevity, was hired July 27 by the Cedar Grove BOE at an annual pay of $150,000, pending approval by the Essex County superintendent of schools, a video of the July 27 meeting shows.
As noted by the board president, DeVita was sitting in the audience at the time of the board vote.
His appointment takes effect Oct. 1, 2016, and runs through June 30, 2017. He replaces Renee Taveniere, who is stepping down from the post.
According to several KBOE sources, DeVita tendered his resignation last Thursday. After sharing the news with his staff at KBOE headquarters, he informed Schools Superintendent Patricia Blood and then emailed members of the KBOE.
Devita, 38, who lives in Cedar Grove, came to the Kearny school district in late 2009 after having served as B.A. in the Nutley public school system.
He’ll be shifting to a much smaller district: while Kearny has a public school population of more than 6,100 spread among a high school, middle school and five elementary school buildings plus an obligation to pay for some 300 Kearny students who will be attending the town’s first-ever charter school and an annual budget of about $84 million, Cedar Grove has about 1,600 students divided among a high school, middle school and two elementary school buildings and a yearly budget of about $28 million.
During much of his Kearny sojourn, DeVita had to deal with the district’s controversial multi-million-dollar high school renovation project, as yet incomplete, and much litigation that the project triggered.
In Cedar Grove, he will be stepping into another infrastructure issue with a familiar ring which came up for discussion at the July 27 Cedar Grove BOE meeting when Schools Superintendent Michael Fetherman announced that due to an “asbestos incident” at the North End School during a construction upgrade, the school won’t be ready to open in time for fall classes because it will take eight weeks of remediation to clear the school of the toxin.
As a consequence, Fetherman said, the district may be looking at a cost of “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to lease space in another location to temporarily house North End students and that is money not anticipated in the 2016-2017 district budget, he added.
The situation will be a jarring reminder for DeVita of the temporary trailer classrooms that have been sitting on the front lawn of Kearny High School for several years during that school’s ambitious construction job.
In an unrelated educational development, it was learned that the three members of the KBOE whose terms expire this year have all filed petitions to run in November. They are Barbara Cifelli-Sherry, Bernadette McDonald and Samantha Paris.
Two newcomers – Theresa Andryszczak and George A. Zapata – are also in the race. Andryszczak, who was among several residents who applied for a seat on the board after member Dan Esteves was removed, is active with the local VFW Post 1302. Zapata, a 2015 Kearny High School graduate, reportedly was in the same class as Andryszczak’s daughter.
Here are the filings for other school contests in The Observer territory:
In Lyndhurst, six candidates are vying for three seats. Incumbents Ronald Szwec, Joseph Abruscato and Susan Alcuri will face challengers Joy A. Bilis, Chris Andrinopoulos Jr. and James Donovan.
In North Arlington, incumbents Joseph A. Ricciardelli and Stanley Titterington square off against Angelique I. Hays, Michele Higgins and Heather Gilgallon for two seats. Gilgallon is a school social worker for the Dumont school and a sociology teacher for Jersey College of N.J. and Fla. who says she’s concerned about the way the borough school system is handling the educational program for her older child who attends Queen of Peace School.
In Belleville, only one of three incumbents, John Rivera, is seeking re-election. Neither Lillian Torres nor Raymond Kuebler has filed. Other candidates are Erika Jacho, Thomas Graziano, Homeira Abidzadeh, Thomas Grolimond and Michael Sheldon.
And in Nutley, incumbents Charles W. Kucinski, Brenda Sherman and Daniel Carnicella face no opposition for their seats.
