TOMS RIVER – Mayor Daniel Rodrick was served tenure charges signed by Superintendent Jessica Alfone to have him removed from his teaching position at the Middletown School District.
The charges, dated December 19, put Rodrick on administrative leave effective December 20, 2024. He started working for the district in September of 2002. He is currently assigned to Thorne Middle School.
When he won the mayoral race in 2023, critics questioned how he could do his full time teaching job and run the town full time. According to the charges, municipal work and personal phone calls were made during class time. The charges were obtained via the Open Public Records Act and quickly made the rounds among political observers. Many of the pages are blacked out to protect sensitive information.
During the 2024-5 school year, he was scheduled to teach five classes, one of which was the sixth grade “Hands-on Construction Lab,” from 9:07 a.m. until 10:07 a.m., according to the charges.
“From the onset of the 2024-5 school year, students in Rodrick’s class began making numerous complaints about him and met with their guidance counselors requesting to be removed from Rodrick’s class. Such requests are out of the ordinary, prompting Thorne administration to investigate the matter further,” the charges read.
Administration had heard from students that Rodrick used his cell phone during class time prior to this school year, but it came into focus on November 13, 2024, when a student told administrators that Rodrick was using text to speak feature on his phone as well as using the school phone during class time.
The call logs on the classroom’s landline showed that on September 23, 2024, Rodrick made three phone calls during class time that were unrelated to school business. Two were for about five minutes each and one was just 16 seconds.
According to the call log, one was made to the Toms River U-Haul Moving And Storage and two were made to Hecht Trailers.
“A search of the telephone numbers established that the calls were not school related. Leaving sixth grade students unattended and unsupervised for any amount of time – over 11 minutes in this case – while attending to personal business is unacceptable, endangers the safety and welfare of the students in that class, and warrants removal from one’s position,” the charges state.
The district received reports from individuals outside the district that he was conducting Toms River business during class time. These individuals obtained emails from his township email address using the Open Public Records Act showing that Rodrick sent 11 emails during class time spread out between January 26, 2024; January 31, 2024; February 5, 2024 and February 9, 2024.
Telephone records obtained via OPRA showed he made phone calls on his township cell phone during class time on January 3, 2024 (2 calls); January 16, 2024 (1); February 13, 2024 (1); April 10, 2024 (1); April 12, 2024 (2) and April 15, 2024 (1).
Parents complained to the district that Rodrick was putting in grades late. Administrators sat down with him to find out what happened. He told them the grades were put in on time.
“That was not true. District computer records demonstrate that Rodrick consistently input student grades well after the due date. Indeed, Rodrick was aware of this when he misrepresented to administration that he timely inputs all of his grades,” the charges read.
The document had printouts showing the due date for the grades and the time they were updated days later.
“These incidents are the culmination of escalating performance issues which Rodrick has presented the district. These include documented discipline for inappropriate staff conduct, failure to timely prepare lesson plans, failing to attend faculty meetings, failing to timely respond to parents’ inquiries and failing to input student grades.”
The document stated that he had been counseled about his attendance issues in 2012, 2018, 2019, and 2020.
In October 2022, he was admonished when he “exposed his chest and stomach in the presence of students and staff in the school’s gymnasium.”
In February of 2024, he was written up for failing to meet deadlines for posting grades, failure to sign in, poor faculty meeting attendance, lack of consistency in submitting lesson plans, and poor email responsiveness.
“To date this year (December 19, 2024), at least five students have requested to be removed from Rodrick’s class for various reasons. Such requests are atypical.”
Complaints from students include that he does not teach but posts fast-paced origami videos on Google Classroom. Later it notes “Mr. Rodrick have [sic] never demonstrated origami nor is origami in the curriculum.”
Other statements from Principal Shannon Smith about the class include: “Students noted Mr. Rodrick spends most of the class on his phone using text-to-speech or making calls;” “Several students (names redacted) reported that Mr. Rodrick yells at them for mistakes or offers no support when they ask for help;” and “Students like (names redacted) have been visibly upset, some in tears, due to difficulties in the class and lack of guidance.”
Retaliation
Rodrick said the attacks are politically motivated.
“This is a political witch hunt and retaliation for the good government policies we are pursuing in Toms River. In 23.5 years, I have never received a negative evaluation. For the last five years, I was rated as highly effective. Just two weeks before these charges, the district evaluated me as effective and made no mention of any shortcomings in my performance,” he said in an email to the media.
“This is a political vendetta by the members of the Middletown School Board, whose paid political consultant, Art Gallagher was fired from his no-show job at Town Hall. It is also retribution for eliminating lucrative contracts for political insiders and for speaking out against policies that were depriving Middletown special needs students from a thorough and efficient education. All the details will be available to the public in a few weeks when we file our lawsuit against the district,” he said.
Rodrick provided printouts showing that Gallagher’s company, Gallco, was paid $10,046.88 each by board members Frank Capone and Jacqueline Tobacco during their campaigns.
