Sources: Six BoE Employees To Lose Jobs

The Hoboken Board of Education is planning not to renew the contracts of six non-tenured employees during Tuesday night's Board of Education meeting, according to several people with knowledge of the situation.

Among the six employees are Paula Ohaus, the district's theater program director; and the director of the Johns Hopkins program, Cheng Yen Hillenbrand. It's still unclear who the other four employees are.

The school board has the right to not renew a contract if the employee does not have tenure, explained Gary Enrico, president of the Hoboken Education Association. Neither Ohaus nor Hillenbrand have tenure. Usually non-tenure employees receive a non-renewal notice by April 30.

The Board of Education is planning to change that notification date to May 15 during Tuesday's meeting. Without the approval of that change, the six employees cannot receive their non-renewal notices. Many other municipalities in the state have made the same date change. In Hoboken, it means that Ohaus and Hillenbrand—as well as the other four employees—receive their notification retro-actively.

The date will be changed because of "the Board's difficulty in making staffing decisions in time to meet the April 30 deadline," according to a communication between Enrico and Board President Rose Marie Markle (the letters are attached to this story).

"The April 30 deadline came and went without any word from the superintendent about teachers who weren't getting renewed," said Board member Maureen Sullivan. "I assumed that no teachers would be let go."

Enrico said the date is being changed because of a state statute.

Ohaus briefly last month after she said she felt harassed in her job. A few days later she .

Ultimately, all staffing decisions are made by the superintendent of schools and ratified by the Board of Education.

School superintendent Mark Toback declined to comment on the contents of the meeting agenda, because it had not yet been made public as of Monday morning. The agenda was scheduled to become a public document as of 3 p.m. on Monday.

"There's no interest in any sort of eliminating," Toback said, when asked if any programs would be cut.

In an email distributed to parents around town, local parent Elizabeth Markevitch is urging people to come to the meeting on Tuesday to protest the decision to let Ohaus and Hillenbrand go. Markevitch said she will also be creating a Facebook event to invite people to come to Tuesday's school board meeting.

Markevitch, who against the Kids First majority, said her daughter is in the theater arts program. If Ohaus is laid off, Markevitch said, "I would possibly reconsider taking (my daughter) out of the Hoboken school system."