CREST HAVEN — After 40 years in education this month, 17 as a “superintendent,” William Desmond, 60, will close his appointment book Jan. 1, 2008.
He will leave the world of students, teachers, tests, school buses and state mandates.
Last agenda item in the “personnel” category of the June 19 county Technical School District Board of Education meeting simply read: “William E. Desmond, Superintendent, Retirement, 1-1-08.”
The board was previously informed of Desmond’s intent to retire from his $157,062-a-year post. During the June 19 meeting the board interviewed representatives of two organizations that proposed to lead a superintendent’s search for Desmond‘s replacement.
The first, Barry Ersek, director of professional development, N.J. Association of School Administrators, then Jane Kershner, associate field service representative, N.J. School Boards Association.
Ersek’s group’s quote was about $15,000; Kershner’s was $6,000.
The board opted for the latter, having worked with Kershner and that organization when it selected Desmond five years ago, when William Kistler chose to retire.
Desmond is a towering man with a dry sense of humor.
That sense came through when asked his hometown.
“Dennis Township,” was his immediate reply.
More specifically? “It’s either Clermont or Ocean View,” he quipped about his undetermined community, Alexandria, where the Ocean View Post Office is about two miles north, yet his mail address is Cape May Court House.
Desmond’s humor can be disarming as he reports to the appointed school board about an inane state regulation, and then cracks a joke without so much as missing a beat or smiling.
A Bronx, N.Y., native, who graduated from Lemoyne College, Syracuse, N.Y. in 1967, Desmond culled that ability from a career of hearing excuses and promises, first from seven years worth of math students in the Mount Arlington School District in Morris County, a K-8 district near Lake Hopatcong. Underlings, fellow administrators and state officials uttered later excuses.
After seven classroom years teaching mathematics, Desmond became a guidance counselor.
He was selected to be principal of two schools in the district, where he served 14 years.
In 1990, he became the district’s superintendent.
In 1994, Desmond became Dennis Township’s superintendent.
In the interim, he had made application to the state Department of Education to be county school superintendent.
“The state is very slow,” Desmond said.
After departing Dennis Township, “I was hired by Bass River, and I performed superintendent services for them and Washington Township in Burlington County,” said Desmond.
Then he got a call from Assistant Commissioner John Sherry.
“He told me they were appointing me as (Cape May) county superintendent, and to start the next Wednesday. I said, ‘Do you know where I am?'” said Desmond.
His board was “gracious enough to let me out,” said Desmond, who like all top administrators had a contract with the district.
That three-year appointment as the state Department of Education’s southern outpost representative came in November 1998.
He replaced Gail Benson, who had served in an acting superintendent’s capacity since May 1998 after she replaced former Supt. Sandra Loewe, who was shifted to Gloucester County.
Desmond became familiar with the Technical School, first from the state’s representative. He took his oath as a board member Dec. 16, 1998, along with then-board president Carlo Melini.
As county superintendent, Desmond, by virtue of the office, became a member of the district board of education, as well as a similar member on the county Special Services School District and on the Atlantic Cape Community College Board of Trustees.
In June 2002, Desmond had been through the screening process of the Technical District’s superintendent’ search. He was asked to leave as the board met in closed session to discuss personnel matters, and was later informed he was the new superintendent.
When he assumed the post, the district had about 440 full-time high school students.
“We now have over 500, and there should be 560 in September,” said Desmond.
He based figures solely upon full-time students, but there are many others, shared-time, adult high school, and post-secondary that boost the number even higher.
The district is presently well into a $14-million enlargement project that will add science rooms, a masonry classroom, (built at the urging of area masons who need young, skilled workers), an auxiliary gym, and other classrooms to accommodate a growing student population.
“Our goal for the new addition over four years is 700 full time students,” said Desmond.
Retirement plans?
“My wife is working on a ‘honey-do’ list, but other than that, I have no specific plans,” he said.
That includes not planning to mentor fledgling superintendents, partly due to a new state regulation that requires superintendents to take a two-day course before embarking on that mission.
“As county superintendent, I did a lot of that off the cuff,” he said of aiding new superintendents.
As Desmond plans time away from classrooms and rigid schedules, he reflects on the state of county superintendents, now to be called “executive superintendents.”
Albert Monillas, interim county superintendent, a member of the Technical School Board of Education, has tendered his resignation, and will be taking the superintendent’s post in Bordentown Regional School District.
Contact Campbell at (609) 886-8600 ext 28 or e-mail: al.c@cmcherald.com
