Woodbridge BOE is Subpoenaing the State's Cheating Report

The same body that suspended a Woodbridge school principal may be helping her to clear her name.

Lisa Krenkel, the attorney for Dara Kurlander, one of five principals and teachers suspended in the wake of the school district's cheating scandals, said she's pleased the Board of Education is subpoenaing the NJ Department of Education’s Office of Fiscal Accountability and Compliance (OFAC) for the information they used in determining who was responsible for the cheating.

"Dara is very committed to getting to the bottom of what happened, to find out how we got to where we are, and how to prevent it in the future," Krenkel said.

School Board attorney Jonathan Busch said the board had passed a resolution to subpoena OFAC's records.

"Before the board can take any steps, they need to understand the full scope of the personnel involvement in the cheating," Busch said. "They seek answers as soon as possible."

OFAC released reports that are posted on the Woodbridge School District's website. Busch said that the BOE doesn't have any more information than the public has on the scandal, and they need more details to understand what happened and to come up with a corrective action plan to ensure systemic cheating doesn't happen again.

"We want to see [OFAC's] records," Busch said. "We have what the public has, and with some exceptions, that's all the information we have on this matter."

Busch said he expects to hear from OFAC by mid-October.

Meanwhile, Kurlander vigorously protests her innocence.

She was the former principal of Avenel Street School #4 & #5, an elementary school in the district that was flagged for having a high number of wrong-to-right erasures on NJ ASK standardized tests. Kurlander had been transferred to Woodbine School just days before the Board of Education announced in August that she and four other educators in the district were being suspended.

The insiders who were interviewed, according to the OFAC report, made "vague, anonymous statements," Krenkel said. "Who are they? What was their motivation?"

Kurlander, she said, didn't instruct any teacher to cheat by coaching students in changing wrong answers to right ones, as the OFAC report said. She had no idea that cheating was going on in her school.

"Dara is looking forward to the board's investigation into the OFAC report. She is looking to clearing her name and being reinstated" in her job, Krenkel said.

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