UPDATE: Roxbury BOE Approves O'Neill as Interim Superintendent
Annette Brooks said she is "very excited" to have O'Neill begin work.
Annette Brooks, the president of the Roxbury Board of Education, said she is "very, very excited" that the board appointed Jim O'Neill as the interim superintendent for the Roxbury School District, effective Tuesday.
O'Neill served as the superintendent for the School District of the Chathams for nearly eight years. He stepped down in June after Gov. Chris Christie passed a salary cap on superintendent salaries that would have amounted to a pay cut of approximately 20 percent for O'Neill.
"I really wasn't ready to retire, so I'm glad the opportunity came up and the timeframe works for me," O'Neill said. "I get to work with another set of educators and hopefully we can do some good things for the district.
"Once they did the interview it happened pretty quickly," O'Neill said. He said he sent his resume in around the beginning of August.
O'Neill spent Monday meeting the educators in Roxbury before the Board of Education voted Monday night.
According to the Roxbury Board of Education agenda, O'Neill will receive a salary of $644 per day with no benefits. If approved, the contract would end on Feb. 29, 2012. O'Neill said the board will decide by December whether they wish to extend his contract through the end of the academic year.
Michael Rossi had been Roxbury's superintendent since 2008 before becoming Madison's chief of schools this year.
"My goal at this point is to hope that my skills, my experience, are a good match for what they need" and to "help them find a new superintendent," O'Neill said.
R. Swanson
9:22 am on Monday, August 22, 2011
"...hopefully we can do some good things for the district." Yeah, right. It's all about doing some good things for Mr. O'Neill's wallet. This practice of retiring and then getting another taxpayer funded job ought to be outlawed. Pulling down a pension and then collecting $644 per day as an "interim superintendent". Double dip away as school taxes continue to climb to infinity.
Biff
9:37 am on Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Congratultions Roxbury on getting a best-in-class Superintendent! Your school district will likely improve, housing prices will rise, while Chatham goes in the opposite direction. As a Republican, I want LESS government making decisons for me, not BIG Christie government that takes away the will and vote of tax payers in Chatham. Christie cuts our state aid for education, AND forces us to lose our superintendent. Roxbury is a winner, so is Mr. O'Neill who now gets double pay as a result of Christie's ill thought - headline grabbind decision, and Christie is a huge winner because unknowledgable people and the press think he's a brilliant cost cutter. Has anyone's cost of living/taxes gone down under Christie? Not mine, my local taxes have gone up and my train ticket skyrocketed when he cust public transportation rather than raise the gas tax by a penny, which would hurt his national image and presidential chances. Jim O'Neill was great for Chatham, Chris Christie has been a train wreck (with no surviviors). Less is better Chris Christie, less is better (no pun intended).