What Is Going On With The Ocean City, New Jersey School District?

After over a decade of stability with Dr. Kathleen Taylor as Superintendent, Ocean City School District will now be hiring the fourth different person for that top job since 2021. So how does a New Jersey School District with almost 2,0000 students have more turnover at Superintendent than a Professional Sports Organization with their Head Coaches?

When Dr. Taylor retired at the end of the 2020-21 School Year, she was leaving the job at a time when everyone was dealing with the aftermath of the COVID-19 Pandemic that turned everyone's lives upside down.  The Ocean City Board of Education had a good plan in place: hire an interim Superintendent for the 2021-22 School Year while conducting a search for a full-time replacement for the job. But that good plan resulted in haphazard consequences.

While Dr. Thomas Baruffi served as Interim Superintendant, the School District candidate search landed them with Dr. Matthew Friedman, who they hired as the Full-Time Superintendent starting with the 2022-23 School Year.  What Dr. Friedman did not disclose to anyone when he was hired for the job in Ocean City, New Jersey was that he did not view their Superintendent job as a long-term position he intended to keep working at.

Dr. Friedman is originally from Downingtown, Pennsylvania and while he was working for the Ocean City School District, applied for the same job with the Quakertown Community School District. When the Bucks County School Board approved hiring Dr. Friedman as Superintendent, the Ocean City Board of Education found out the news from the Bucks County Herald article. Despite signing a three-year contract, Dr. Friedman actively positioned himself to bail on the Ocean City School District after only eight months on the job.

The aftermath of the fiasco with Dr. Friedman left the Ocean City Board of Education scrambling to find another person to work as the School District Superintendent. After a split vote, they approved the hiring of Dr. Scott McCartney to work as Interim Superintendent from July 1st to December 31st. The new plan was for the School District to conduct another job search for a Full-Time Superintendent.

But instead of having a full-time Superintendent in place to start the 2024 Calendar year, the Ocean City Board of Education announced they voted unanimously to hire Terry Crowley to be the Interim Superintendent for the remaining six months of the 2023-24 School Year. Crowley is an Ocean City Resident who was the Kingsway Regional School District Superintendent for 26 years and recently worked as the New Jersey Department of Education State Monitor for the Woodbine School District.

So why is the Ocean City School District hiring the third interim Superintendent since 2021 instead of hiring someone for the job on a full-time basis? There are three new School Board Members who were elected in the most recent Ocean City Municipal Election. Because the recent December Board of Education meeting was the final session for the three departing members, the NEW plan is for the newly elected School Board Officials to be a part of the search for the next Superintendent.

By the time we reach the Summer of 2024, the Ocean City School District will be hiring a fifth different person to work as Superintendent since 2021, which means for Ocean City High School Seniors there will be a different person in charge of their school for every year of their High School lives.  Maybe the next Superintendent that the Ocean City Board of Education hires will work for more than one school year!