Sources have confirmed that the Asbury Park Education Association, at the urging of its members, is preparing for a vote of no-confidence in Superintendent Rashawn Adams. The timing is not coincidental: the next scheduled public school board meeting is tomorrow.

NJ Education Report will continue to follow this developing story.

At the most recent meeting on May 8th, necessitated because the Asbury Park Board of Education tabled votes on Adams’ recommendations to lay off 10 teachers, including the only Haitian-speaking social worker, and withhold raises for teachers on the grounds of (allegedly) trumped-up charges of ineffectiveness, members of the public assailed Adams’ leadership for over two hours.

One item on Thursday’s agenda will reconfigure the schools as district enrollment continues to shrink. In 2020 the school board closed Barack Obama Elementary School, reducing the three school buildings serving students in preK-3d grade to two buildings (Bradley Elementary and Thurgood Marshall); placing all 4th-6th graders in Martin Luther King Upper Elementary School (previously it was a middle school, serving students in grades 6-8); and moving 7th and 8th graders to Asbury Park High School with the promise to parents that the younger students would be segregated from the older students.

That didn’t work out: the two age groups regularly intermingled, to parent consternation. Here is the action item on tomorrow’s agenda:

Upon the recommendation of the Superintendent, the Board approves the reconfiguration of the Asbury Park School District for the 2023-2024 SY as follows: Bradley Elementary School PreK-5th Grade, Thurgood Marshall School PreK-5th Grade, Martin Luther King Middle School 6th – 8th Grade, & Asbury Park High School 9th – 12th Grade