Ten days ago NJ Education Report published, “BREAKING: Asbury Park Principal, a Hero to the Community, Resigns From the District He Called a ‘Crime Syndicate.'” Inside sources explained that Thurgood Marshall Elementary School Principal Reginald Mirthil abruptly resigned because “he wouldn’t play ball with the Carteret Cartel,” a reference to the district’s long history of administrative nepotism and corruption, described more fully in other recent pieces about Asbury Park Public Schools. Some of these reports have provoked unprofesional social media outrage from Acting Superintendent Rashawn Adams:
Yet it is comments from ordinary readers–teachers, parents, community members— that ring most true regarding the sudden resignation of Mirthil. As Asbury Park Education Association President John Napolitani confirms in an email sent to all staff after teachers told NJ Education Report that the first day of school was a “shitshow,” staff members are “afraid of retaliation…It’s sad when we are grown adults and concerned about being punished for trying to make sure the children are properly educated.”
Here are some of those comments (from NJ Ed Report’s Facebook page). They were written by those who work each day in Asbury Park or send their children there, with names redacted. Overwhelmingly, these Asbury Park residents convey their distress over the loss of a school leader described as a “hero” and “tireless advocate” for children, as well as the dissolution of a district that Mirthil himself labeled an “organized crime syndicate/gang.”
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