The New Jersey Department of Education is rife with gossip, as many workplaces are, but in my experience gossip spreads more quickly when staff morale is low and ineffective leadership prevails. This is just to say that I hear a lot of DOE gossip and, as faithful readers know, I don’t print anything I can’t verify from two or more sources.

A new rumor is circulating at the DOE and, due to its import, I decided I needed more than two sources. This time I waited to hear from five sources who serve in three different divisions. This is the rumor: Education Commissioner Lamont Repollet will step down at the end of June.

If Repollet does indeed leave after only 18 months on the job, I’ll have much more to say about his crusade to lower the bar for high school graduation and implement a statewide version of his “64 Floor,” his dismissive approach to accurate measures of student growth, his weak management style (17 out of 55 leadership positions are marked “vacant” on the DOE organization chart), his indifference to accountability, his nepotism, and his distrust of teachers who, he claims, “weaponize grades.”

Meanwhile, we’ll call this a widespread rumor. If anyone knows anything more specific, please let me know.