According to inside sources at Asbury Park schools, the Administration, with complicity of the majority of the school board, is once again engaging in nepotism.

Yet consider the bright side.

At last week’s school board meeting, superintendent Rashawn Adams recommended the appointment of Stephanie Savoia as a full-time speech therapist. Sources say she is the niece of Paul Sevoia, the Asbury Park Data Communications manager; they’ve her her call him “Uncle PJ.”

In some ways this is terrific news for Asbury Park students: among those who qualify for speech therapy, some portion of them have allegedly not received services mandated by their Individualized Education Plans. This is, in part, because in April 2022 the board, at Adams’ recommendation, laid off a number of disability specialists, even though teachers begged administrators to reconsider and provided clear data to support the reality that the elimination of a speech therapist would be damaging to students and that there would not be enough staff to support the student’s IEP mandated services and testing. One source reflected, “the sad part is that students missed out on so many sessions because we didn’t have enough speech therapists.”

There’s history here.

In 2015 when Lamont Repollet was hired to be Asbury Park superintendent, before Gov. Phil Murphy chose him as his first Education Commissioner, he appointed Carolyn Marano as his head of special education. Many students with moderate to severe disabilities are eligible for “Extended School Year” (ESY) , a program that typically lasts four-six weeks during the summer. But in 2016 Marano canceled ESY:

“Marano canceled ESY for the summer of 2016, even though those summer services were written into students’ Individualized Education Plans. When staffers complained, Marano allegedly replied, ‘I know all the higher-ups at the state. I know everyone.’  She was ‘banking on the fact that parents wouldn’t complain’ (some don’t speak English, some are too intimidated to advocate) but one parent fought back. That child received compensatory services. The other eligible students did not.”

 Why the cancellations? Marano was on a quest to cut the costs for special education, despite the cost to student progress. She told one staffer, “Bruce Springsteen stuttered and he did okay.”

When Repollet went to Trenton to serve as Murphy’s education chief, he took Marano with him; that’s another story. Not much has changed for Asbury Park students with disabilities. 

Until, sources claim, the relative of a central office administrator needed a job as a full-time speech therapist.

Win-win? Your call.