regarding Rochelle Hendrick’s absence at today’s NJEA Convention, conveyed in Monday’s memo:

New Jersey Board of Education member and former NJEA President Edithe Fulton:

She may have signed (the letter declining NJEA’s invitation to speak), but I honestly don’t think she wrote it. She’s between a rock and a hard place, and she serves at the pleasure of the governor. It’s unfortunate that she was not allowed, I believe, to come to this convention because she would have had wonderful things to say to our teachers.

Alan Guenther, Spokesman for the DOE:

It’s the acting commissioner’s letter and it was her decision not to attend.

State Senator Richard Codey:

If the administration’s problem isn’t with teachers but with the union leadership, as has been stated many times before, then skipping the teachers’ convention sends the completely opposite message. With thousands of educators in Atlantic City, the administration has a once-a-year chance to talk past the union leadership it despises and directly to the teachers it claims to support. This could have been their chance to talk directly to the people who stand in front of the classroom, many of whom voted for the governor, and make them their agents for change.

Barbara Keshishian, NJEA President:

We are concerned by her [Rochelle Hendricks’] lack of concern.