Acting superintendent looking ahead; former still being paid $300,000
UPPER TOWNSHIP — The Board of Education has replaced former superintendent Vincent Palmieri with an acting chief school administrator through at least the end of the school year.
The board hired Christopher Kobik, former superintendent of the Lower Cape May Regional School District, to serve in the interim until a replacement is found.
According to his letter of resignation dated Nov. 21, 2022, Palmieri will remain employed by the Upper Township School District until Dec. 31, 2024, at a salary of $176,083 for 2023 and $135,000 for 2024.
The board approved the separation agreement that evening.
In a letter posted on the Upper Township School District website, Kobik stated he appreciates “the opportunity to serve as your acting superintendent through this winter and spring.”
“Let’s welcome this new year with a renewed commitment to providing the best possible educational experiences for all of our children,” he stated. “Please continue to encourage and support each other and celebrate daily accomplishments. This will nurture a climate most conducive to student learning.”
Kobik characterized acting superintendents as “short-timers to help transition a district to new leadership, saying state law provides the opportunity for districts to employ experienced top administrators while seeking a long-term replacement.
“The whole idea is to keep things moving forward in a positive direction,” he said.
Kobik explained that he is not just a placeholder, saying he has set goals such as improving efficiencies in communication throughout the district, implementing a consistent decision-making process and tweaking some things to help the organization run more smoothly.
“We have an excellent staff and a dedicated board of education,” he said.
Kobik also noted there are financial challenges, noting the district has lost a tremendous amount of state aid over the past several years.
“When we have an opportunity to shrink, we will try to shrink smart without impacting the kids in the classrooms,” he said.
Another of Kobik’s priorities will be defining and facilitating the process of finding a long-term superintendent, noting it is the Board of Education that will make the decision. It will be his fourth time through the process and he feels he has the experience to assist the district in choosing the right person for the job.
He said the search committee already has met once to schedule upcoming meetings and would be reporting its progress during school board meetings.
“I’m looking forward to helping the board find somebody who will be a good leader for the children of the district and the teachers, and to make sure the school reflects the values and desires of its community,” he said.
Kobik retired as superintendent of the Lower Cape May Regional School District, which he served for 30 years, in 2019. Since that time, he has served as acting superintendent for the Southampton Township School District (January-June 2021) and Lumberton Township School District (March-June 2022).
Kobik comes from a family of educators. His parents were teachers and education often was a topic discussed at the dinner table, he told Sentinel sister newspaper the Cape May Star and Wave in 2018. His father was an industrial arts teacher and his mother taught and was a speech therapist in the East Brunswick school system.
Kobik was born in Newark. His family moved to Edison and later to East Brunswick, then to Lower Township in his freshman year of high school.
Kobik’s first teaching job was in Maine, where his family went on camping vacations. He also worked at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, giving instrumental music lessons on the side.
After two years in Maine, Kobik decided he wanted to return to New Jersey to go to graduate school.
He met his wife in Maine and the couple moved to Jamesburg-Monroe, where they both taught in the Monroe Township School District. Kobik then attended Rider College in Lawrence Township.
His parents and other family members were living in Cape May County, where he had worked in the charter and sport fishing business. He was the first secretary of the Cape May County Charter and Party Boat Association and worked closely with the school’s marine science program in developing an oyster aquaculture course.
Kobik taught band, instrumental music, music theory and music history at Lower Cape May Regional for two years and served as assistant principal at the Richard M. Teitelman School for three years.
He was principal of Teitelman for more than a dozen years and served as director of curriculum and instruction for a decade. Kobik served six years as superintendent.
During his tenure, the high school added 15 Advanced Placement courses, as well as a number of tech-education programs that garner college credit and collaborate with industry partners for work-based field experience.
In spring 2018, Kobik joined the Cape Regional Wellness Alliance, funded by a four-year grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Alliance, to study Adverse Childhood Experiences.
He said physical abuse in the home, sexual abuse, mental and emotional abuse, lack of love and caring, nutrition and hygiene issues, addiction, alcoholism, divorce and separation, abuse of mothers, mental illness, prison and law enforcement issues are the signs of what happens to impact children.
Part of the alliance’s core objective was to look at evidential data in Lower and Middle townships, Wildwood and Woodbine, Kobik said.
