FIT criticizes school chief; he fires back

Group slams time off for professional development; superintendent says FIT misrepresenting the facts

OCEAN CITY — Fairness In Taxes has criticized the Ocean City Board of Education, questioning its oversight of the time and cost Superintendent of Schools Dr. Matthew Friedman spent on professional development, asking why he wasn’t terminated immediately as soon as the board found out he would be leaving after his first year in the position.

Friedman responded that the group is misrepresenting facts, that everything he has done has come with the board’s support and approval, and that he is being slammed just because he found another job that made sense for him and his family.

FIT questioned Friedman’s commitment to the district given that of a total of the 195 working days between July 1 and the end of April 2023, he was out for 43 days, more than a fifth of his time, according to an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request the group filed. Twenty-seven and a half of those days were reported for professional development, nine for vacation and six and a half for illness or personal.

“They can OPRA 8 million things,” Friedman said of that and other requests the group made, “but if they want to connect dots that aren’t connecting, that’s called lying.” 

Longtime superintendent Dr. Kathleen Taylor retired in summer 2021 and an interim filled in for the 2021-22 school year. Friedman was hired in the spring for the 2022-23 school year with a start date of July 1, 2022. 

At the end of March, Friedman told the district he had applied for and would be taking a job with the Quakertown (Pa.) Community School District, leaving at the end of June.

David Breeden, president of Fairness In Taxes (FIT), wrote to school board President Chris Halliday seeking answers, asserting that Friedman did not fulfill his duties, citing the contract that he was “to devote the superintendent’s full time, skills, labor and attention to this employment during the term of this contract.”

In a May 4 letter to Halliday, followed by another dated Monday, May 15, FIT questioned the time off.

“Based on the attendance report, Dr. Friedman was absent or out of district for 43 days, or over eight (8) weeks,” Breeden wrote on May 4. “In other words, Dr. Friedman was in the district only 78 percent of the time. Using the high school grading scale, Dr. Friedman’s would earn a work attendance grade of “C,” which is just barely satisfactory. Is this acceptable to the board?”

His followup letter May 15 focused on the first six days off at the beginning of July, listed as professional development. FIT alleged it could not find evidence of an approved professional development event and asked Halliday and the board about that, saying with a $190,000 salary, that amounted to $4,386 being paid for that time.

The superintendent did not dispute the number of days spent on professional development or his other time off, but said FIT is lying about the first six days of his employment with the district, calling the allegation “completely inaccurate.”

On Tuesday morning, Friedman explained he was working on the transition in his former district, Maplewood and South Orange, while being on call to Ocean City the first part of July.

“That was an understanding between my lawyer, the district lawyer, the district business administrator, school board president, school board vice president and the county superintendent that I needed to transition my replacement in South Orange Maplewood. They couldn’t start my contract on July 11. They had to start it on July 1,” he said.

Friedman explained while he was physically in South Orange he was available by phone, text, email, Zoom or in person with Ocean City. He noted that as soon as he was hired in the spring and got an email address in the Ocean City district, he began meeting with people here in May and June.

“I was fully invested in working in Ocean City. For them to accuse me and to think otherwise, that is slander,” he said. “That is inaccurate and I want the truth printed about that because it is disgusting they are fabricating something that is completely not true. That can be confirmed by Chris Halliday, (former school board president) Patrick Kane, (business administrator) Tim Kelley, (solicitor) Mike Stanton … and the list can go on and on.”

He said he also has all the email documentation and phone records to back that up.

“If that is something they want to pursue and try to put in the paper, then there will have to be further action about that. It is completely inaccurate,” he said.

Regarding the 43 days Breeden cited, Friedman said he still has “ample” unused vacation, personal and sick days. 

“In terms of professional development, the board approved all of that. Prior to my taking that job on March 28, this was never a conversation or a concern,” he said. “The board was very supportive of me growing professionally, getting out there statewide and nationally, to bring connections to the Ocean City School District. 

“(Breeden and FIT) have made this an issue. It hasn’t kept me from doing my job one bit. They want to fabricate more stories of this being an issue and a problem with taxpayers, but this was all approved by the board and my renegotiation for my contract for professional development and my dues, that was their (the board’s) choice to raise it to the amount that it did,” he said. “They supported me growing professionally. They hired me because of my connections statewide and nationally and wanting to take the district further than just being a regional top district.

“For people to fabricate all this is pretty disheartening to me,” he said.

Friedman, Breeden said in an interview Friday with the Sentinel, was brought in with much fanfare about his love for education and his speciality for improving education.

“At the end of the day,” Breeden added, “he sold us nothing but false hopes and empty promises.”

Breeden said the purpose of his letters, although focused on Friedman, is to urge the school board to find a superintendent who is willing to devote his or her full energy on the district and be laser-focused on improving the academics in the schools, especially the high school, which have been, at best, average in spite of its tremendous resources, including funding.

He said FIT also believes the board would be justified in terminating the superintendent and putting an interim in place because Friedman’s energies have been directed elsewhere and will continue to be as a lame duck.

He said when Friedman applied to the Quakertown district in January, his cover letter stated he enjoyed working in Ocean City but wanted to work for a “dynamic” district in his home state, “which implies that Ocean City was not dynamic enough or interesting enough or motivating enough for him.”

He said in talking to school board members, a motivation for Friedman taking the job was being much closer to his Pennsylvania home, rather than the extensive commute required to work in Ocean City. FIT argues with that distance, Friedman should not have been hired in the first place. That took time away from his job, as did the professional development time, meaning his work in the district suffered.

“My frustration is that all I did was get a new job. People get new jobs every day,” Friedman said. “It wasn’t a personal affront to anyone in particular or to the district, I did what was best for me personally and professionally. My family comes first.”

“I’m pretty dismayed this is the behavior that adults are displaying and they’re trying to disparage me and all I did was get a new job and did what was best for me and my family,” he continued. “I’m disappointed they came to a public meeting and spread lies and inaccuracies.” (Members of FIT made similar comments at last month’s board of education meeting.)

Breeden said he met with Friedman in February “and he looked me in the eye and told me all the great things he had planned for the district, knowing damn well he had already applied for a job, was part of the interview process and had no intention of staying in Ocean City long-term.”

“When people ask me if I’m taking this personally, yes, I am taking this personally,” he said, noting he has a daughter who is a junior at the high school. He believes every parent should be taking it personally.

He called Friedman’s tenure “self-serving, self-enrichment, a pitstop on the resume-building tour.”

Friedman said he had high hopes when he came to Ocean City, that he’s not a “job jumper,” but the opportunity arose to take a better-paying job with a district with 5,000 students, double Ocean City’s enrollment, and closer to his Pennsylvania home and he would be back in the Pennsylvania pension system. 

Friedman said he and his family had every intention of moving to Ocean City but they also realized they could not afford to buy a home comparable to theirs on the island.

“I don’t think Fairness In Taxes or anyone else can dispute property values on the island,” he said.

Breeden said he has no issue with an administrator seeking professional development so he or she can then use that training to help the district, but believes Friedman should have spent his first year “exclusively focused on the Ocean City School District, meeting staff and students, finding out the strengths and weaknesses of the district, the challenges, and then seeking professional development that would help address those challenges and find solutions.”

He criticized the school board for not providing more oversight.

“If holding people accountable is micromanaging, then you need to re-evaluate your position on the board,” he said.

Fairness In Taxes also has criticized the cost for professional development expenditures, including memberships for Dr. Friedman in multiple groups, but the superintendent said the group got its facts wrong.

FIT provided a list of memberships and professional development that totaled $59,624.97, money it claimed could have been better spent on new textbooks for classrooms and rather than hiring outside consultants to make presentations that could have been handled by Friedman.

“I just see a lot of dollars in the professional development that should have been dedicated to the classroom,” Breeden said.

“They’re completely inaccurate,” Friedman said. “The document indicates they spent (almost) $60,000 on me personally for professional development. It’s pretty appalling they are slandering me like this.” He said FIT is off by $45,624.94.

“The numbers they included was money spent on district professional development, for all staff. It wasn’t for me,” he said. “The actual total that was for me, membership dues and professional development costs, including travel to go to the events … was $14,000.03.”

School board member Robin Shaffer agreed with FIT.

“I find it extremely troubling the amount of time Dr. Friedman spent outside our school district in training, at conferences and teleworking,” Shaffer said after offering to comment on the letters from FIT. 

He said he wasn’t aware Friedman was commuting to the district from Pennsylvania until he saw an article in March about him being up for the job in Quakertown.

“When I saw the information provided by Fairness In Taxes, I wasn’t aware he was working three other jobs,” Shaffer said. 

FIT said Friedman’s 2023 financial disclosure forms showed he earned income in excess of $2,000 from three sources outside the district — Point Park University in Pittsburgh, Pa., Gwynedd Mercy University in Gwynedd Valley, Pa., and Hazard Young Associates in Schaumburg, Ill., a firm that specializes in recruiting school administrators.

“I question how much any person could legitimately attend to a job as demanding as superintendent, when you’re working three other jobs and you’re out of the district that often,” Shaffer said.

45 resumes received in superintendent search

On May 10, the school board had a closed session to focus on “review and discussion” of the 45 resumes received for the new position. The applications were requested by May 5.

“The board summarized the application packages and got right to work,” Halliday said in a press release issued by the district. “We are committed to moving forward with the search in a deliberate, thoughtful manner.

“As I said previously, our goal is to bring an exceptional, dedicated leader to our schools. While we prefer to move forward quickly, the process may take time; time well spent as we strive to meet the needs of our students, families and the Ocean City community today and for years to come.”

The board’s next step is narrowing the list of candidates.

“At this point in time I believe the best course of action is for the board to look inward and promote from within,” Breeden said.

He said looking within would mean little learning curve. Although there are merits to seeking someone from outside the district, he said, he considers this year “a lost year” with Friedman.

“We cannot afford any more time. We have to bring someone in who can hit the ground running, is familiar with the district, knows the staff and what needs to be done to advance the agenda of Ocean City schools,” Breeden said.

Better oversight?

“We need to have a contract that is reflective of what qualities, responsibilities and duties we want the superintendent to do, but there has to be oversight of the contract,” the FIT president said. “There is only one body responsible for that … the board of education, namely the president of the board. There has to be accountability and oversight … to make sure they are living up to the terms of the contract, both the letter of the contract and the spirit.”

“I think the board needs to publicly say, we made a mistake here and here’s what we’re going to do to make sure we don’t make that mistake again,” Breeden said. “Here’s what we’re going to do to make sure we get a superintendent who sincerely cares about the district, the staff and the students. I think that public acknowledgement will go a long way because we all make mistakes. When we acknowledge we were wrong and then provide detail on how we’re going to fix it, people can understand that.”

Shaffer said this should be a “teachable moment” as the board searches for Friedman’s replacement, “when mistakes can be openly acknowledged and learned from, I believe. After all, as an educator I believe that’s what learning is all about and is also what leadership ought to be about. 

“I’m going to do everything I can to support a superintendent candidate who possesses the decisiveness, temperament and judgment to give our district the leadership it deserves,” he added. “We need to identify a candidate who is as committed to us as we are to her or him. We’re going to need to find a candidate who cares about Ocean City schools, who cares about our children, who cares about our teachers, staff and taxpayers as much as we care about them.”

Halliday, sent a series of questions requesting comment on the allegations from Breeden and Fairness In Taxes, said he was limited in how much he could respond.

“Our goal is to hire the most qualified chief school administrator as quickly as possible,” he said via text early Tuesday afternoon. “Ideally, that will be in time for the start of the new school year.”

Regarding oversight, he added, “It is the primary duty of the board to establish policies and the primary duty of the superintendent to implement and administer those policies. That’s all I’m entitled to say as it is a personnel matter.”

Friedman said the school board members know how much he struggled with the decision to leave the Ocean City School District, and the comments from Fairness In Taxes were “affecting me personally and professionally. It is affecting my livelihood and this kind of completely inaccurate stuff getting out there can do a lot of damage. It’s repulsive to me that I even have to prove it, but I have the documents.”

By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff