Suzanne Pudup, the president of the Wayne Township Board of Education, has launched another October surprise. Without a vote of the board, Ms. Pudup changed the location of the board's October public meeting. Critics claim that the move is political. The October public meeting is usually the last before the election.

For years, the board has met monthly in public session in the Town Council Chamber in Town Hall on Valley Road. The Town Hall venue can accommodate more than 200 residents and has a sound and video system that broadcasts meetings of Wayne's Board of Education.

Ms. Pudup, who is currently running for reelection to the board, directed the meeting to be moved to a much smaller conference room at the Board of Education's Administrative Offices. There, the public is relegated to a tiny adjoining room with shoulder-to-shoulder seating for about 25 people. Moreover, the audio is problematic and is difficult for people to at home to hear the public's comments.

Last year about 60 parents attended a November workshop meeting in that conference room to express their concerns. While some were able to sit shoulder-to-shoulder in the tiny adjacent room, most had to stand in the hallways and reception area of the Administration Building. 

The health emergency was ongoing then and everyone was fully masked. Because of the shoulder-to-shoulder seating, the parents starting calling the tiny space "the COVID Closet." People in the Closet stated that they were not able to hear what was going on. The audio of the meeting was troubled that night and the home audience suffered as well.

The "COVID Closet" November 2021. The public's podium without microphone can be seen on the left. Members of the Board of Education can be seen but not heard in the distance. 

"This is disgraceful," said one parent of the current move. "This is the same sort of thing they did last year."

Last year's October public meeting never occurred. Three of nine board members were legitimately absent from the meeting. The Council Chamber was packed with more than 100 people including many parents and many members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Then Board president Cathy Kazan and her vice president, Ms. Pudup, refused to attend the public meeting even though they had just left a prior meeting down the hall. Their refusal meant that the meeting could not be held for lack of a quorum. The opportunity for two important groups to contribute to a true dialog was lost. Parents were enraged and the LGBTQ+ community was disappointed.

"It was then and is now disappointingly political," commented Ryan Battershill who is running for a seat on the board this year. "She (Pudup) doesn't want people at home to hear any criticisms of the board before the election."

Battershill's running mate on the "Children First" team is Barbara Rigoglioso, a trained English teacher and a parent who guided seven children through the Wayne school system over the course of more than 30 years. "Literally hundreds of families are opting out of the new sex ed curriculum that Suzanne Pudup pushed through," said Rigoglioso. "This latest October move will make parents feel once again that they are not being heard. It's the very opposite of transparency." 

Members of the board and others asked why this year's meeting was moved. In an email, Ms. Pudup explained the move this way: "As a Board, we still have discussion coming up on matters that affect the district and I wanted to allow enough time in Exec. session without being rushed. When we pack up and drive down to Council Chambers and get going, it consumes 20 minutes, sometimes more."

"All they had to do is have their precious closed-door meeting in the Town Hall conference room," said Rigoglioso.

On public meeting days, the board's executive meetings are frequently held in a conference room down the hall from the Council Chamber while the public waits without complaint for them to finish. Parents and others argue that there was no need to move the executive and public meetings to the Administration Building.

A feeling of being disrespected is once again growing among parents. They are not looking forward to the Closet. Ironically, Ms. Pudup is running on the "United Not Divided" ticket.