WRIGHT TWP. — As promised, Crestwood School Board held a special meeting Monday for the sole purpose on voting to make acting Superintendent Natasha Milazzo full superintendent, with a salary of $125,000 for a three year contract. The vote was 6-3, but two members who voted no said it was because of the speed of the move and that they fully support the business manager becoming the district’s newest superintendent.
“I believe we’re simply moving too fast,” Board President Barry Boone said in prepared remarks given at the start of the meeting. “I have been a board member for 4-1/2 years and this is our fifth superintendent. What the board really desires is stability.”
Acknowledging Milazzo rose to the top post through a “non-traditional” path, Boone said the board hired a person from New Jersey as superintendent in the 1980s who had a similar non-traditional rise to the job. “My no vote in no way reflects on Milazzo,” he added, expressing high confidence and full support for her.
Board member James Brogna similarly said that he would vote no, but that it was because of the speed of the decision and did not reflect on his faith in Milazzo’s ability. He argued the board could keep Milazzo running the day-to-day job of a superintendent while conducting a full search for a applicants, using former superintendent Robert Mehalick as “Superintendent of Record” to satisfy state requirements. If the search found no better candidate, the board could give Milazzo the job.
Board member Marla Campbell expressed full support for Milazzo as a person who gets things done. “I have been so impressed with her over the past year,” she said. “I believe in a couple of years school districts are going to be beating down our doors to take her away from us.”
Board member Richard Nardone said that in the private sector he had hired over 4,000 people and many managers, and that it was important managers “conform to the company culture.” He said Milazzo lives in the district with two children attending Crestwood schools and thus knows the district and has reason to stay. Mehalick left his job to work in the Hazleton Area School District, closer to home, While his successor Vito Quaglia, from Duryea, had come to Crestwood from Delaware Valley District and left for a job out of the area.
One audience member asked why the board overlooked Peg Foster, current principal of Rice Elementary. Foster had previously been appointed as superintendent by an outgoing board in 2015 only to have the appointment rescinded by the board majority that took office after an election. She was on the agenda to be made assistant superintendent when Quaglia was hired but the board tabled a vote on the Foster vote at the time.
Boone said the board felt Rice Elementary had experienced administrative turnover and it would hurt students if Foster were removed so soon after getting the job as principal. He also said he had spoken to her about it and “her comment was ‘Rice needs me’.”
One man asked why the district was paying Mehalick $1,000 a month as a consultant for the superintendent when Mehalick had often said he loved Crestwood and would help in any way. Boone said that Mehalick didn’t want it known, but that he had promised to donate his Crestwood pay back to the district.
In the end Boone, Brogan and Randy Swank voted against making Milazzo superintendent while the other six members voted in favor.
After the meeting Milazzo, 38, said she is from Berwick and moved to Mountaintop four years ago in large part because of the quality of education. She had two children ages 10 and 12 in the district, earned her bachelors degree in business administration and masters in education, both at Wilkes University, and that she did acquire the state-mandated superintendent letter of eligibility needed to take her new post.
