Montgomery School Board Votes 5-3 to Approve School Superintendent's Contract

Tensions Flare Over the 20% Pay Bump

By Barbara A. Preston for The Montgomery News | September 16, 2026

It was an emotional meeting, leaving one school board member in tears, as the Montgomery Board of Education voted 5 to 3 on Tuesday night in favor of renewing Superintendent Mary E. McLoughlin's contract for five years after a lengthy discussion that was at times contentious.

Superintendent Mary E. McLoughlin after the school board voted 5-3 to approve her new 5-year contract.

Photo by Barbara A. Preston

At the packed and often tense public hearing, the Montgomery Township Board of Education found itself debating each other, and listening to harsh criticism from the audience regarding what the superintendent should be paid, and what the process should be.

The flashpoint was a proposed early five-year contract extension and a nearly 20% pay raise for Superintendent McLoughlin. The salary hike comes at a volatile moment for the affluent central New Jersey school system. Just months after the board passed a budget that raised local property taxes by more than 6 percent while trimming teaching and support staff positions, some taxpayers and the teachers’ union representative attended the board meeting in the Orchard Hill Elementary School auditorium on Tuesday to demand that the board halt or defer the vote.

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A Division Between Board Members, Educators and Taxpayers

The three-hour meeting exposed a sharp divide between 700-plus members of the township's roughly 23,000 residents, who signed a petition opposing the contract. About 15 petition signers spoke at the meeting.

On the other side stood a dozen district administrators and principals, who offered passionate testimonials praising McLoughlin's decade-long tenure in the district and six years at its helm. They pointed to key achievements, including the addition of full-day kindergarten, top-tier state and national academic rankings, a revamped school safety infrastructure, and enhanced programs for students' wellbeing.

"Superintendent McLoughlin remains an advocate for technology while not losing sight of the whole child," said Jeff Brooks, the district's director of technology and a 28-year veteran of the system. "Five more years of that stability would allow for more growth while continuing to be collaborative."

Peer School Superintendents' Salaries for 2026-27
West Windsor-Plainsboro	David Aderhold	$296,351
Princeton Public School	Michael Lasusa	$295,000
Bridgewater-Raritan	Robert Beers	$262,573
Franklin Township	Jennifer Aquino	$262,500
Lawrence Township	Robyn Hilm	$255,000
Hillsborough	Michael Volpe	$249,384
Montgomery School District	Mary McLoughlin	$240,400
Hopewell	Rosetta Treece	$213,220

Data listed for 2026-2027 school year from the NJ Department of Education.

Jennifer Riddell, a Montgomery School District Math Supervisor and president of the Association of Principals and Supervisors of Montgomery Township (APSMT), spoke in support of the superintendent's new contract.

Riddell took issue with the petition launched by school board candidate Gabriela Zayova who recently circulated the online petition, calling for the school board to "reject the five-year proposed contract" and to defer the renewal decision until the newly elected board takes office in 2027.

Riddell said, "There was an attempt to compare superintendent salaries solely by the size of a district. Also, the table referencing other districts is misleading. First it literally shows that Montgomery is the lowest [paid in Somerset County], while a speaker tonight said it was the highest. Second, size can be a factor to consider, but not the only factor. Quality matters, district performance matters, student outcomes matter, the complexity of the district matters. And, it was interesting that school districts like Princeton were not included in the comparison, particularly when we are academically compared to them all the time — and they are right next door."

McLoughlin's contract is actually low by comparison to her peers, Riddell said.

"She [McLoughlin] has led us through COVID, through re-envisioning our safety and security, through major changes in state standards and state policy, and through the exponential growth of educational technology [AI], and added full day kindergarten. And through all those changes, our district has consistently remained at the top," Riddell said.

"Montgomery is in the top 5% of non-admission public high schools," she said. [A non-admission public school is one that accepts all students in the district. An admission school requires students to compete for limited seats, often by achieving high scores on pre-admission tests.]

Teachers Union Opposes the Contract

Montgomery Township Education Association (MTEA ) President Michael Razzoli painted a different picture, questioning how a district claiming financial constraints could justify executive pay increases of this magnitude.

Razzoli recalled the grueling negotiations teachers underwent last year. "At the table, the board attorney continuously told us on behalf of the board that we were in financial crisis," he said. "We were told the board could not afford raises for support staff who maxed out at $35,000. Now we’re going to give an increase of 20%? The question is really simple for us: Do we have enough money or not?"

(MTEA ) President Michael Razzoli.

Petition and Process

School Board Candidate Karen Anderson spoke multiple times at the public hearing. She and Zayova  are running together on a platform.

"We started the petition on Friday when this [hearing] became public," she told the board. "We have over 750 signatures. So you can decide what tomorrow's headline is going to read. You listen to the public, or you ignore the public. The school president crafted a contract behind the curtain only revealed five days ago to the public, yet signed and approved in July. This contract is not worthy of approval."

Former school board members Ania Wolecka-Jernigan and Joanna Filak were among opponents who argued that rushing the approval before a new board takes office deprives incoming representatives of their governance duties and binds future budgets. Multiple audience members personally urged the board to reject the contract or defer any action until January, after local elections in November when three of the board’s nine seats will be decided.

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Ravi Nargund, a township resident who said he has a PhD in chemistry is a former corporate executive, attended the meeting to challenge the process.

"No corporate position at this level would ever get a five-year extension today without posting the role and confirming you have picked the absolute best candidate," he said "We are obliged to confirm for the schools, the township, and the residents that we have made the absolute best choice."

Others criticized the process, noting that McLoughlin’s existing contract does not expire until June 2027, leaving nine months before any renewal action would be strictly necessary.

Board member Ting Wang refuses to be silenced, despite the president using the gavel. She said, about the superintendent evaluation, that the board did not follow a transparent and documented process to arrive at a collective board evaluation.

Broader Governance Debate

The public hearing also laid bare lingering friction on the board itself. During the committee reports portion of the meeting, Board Member Ting Wang, PhD, raised objections regarding access to detailed budget files and restrictive rules governing board members at committee meetings. She also condemned the superintendent evaluation process, saying it was not transparent or documented. And, she said the school board should have done more than providing the required legal notice to the public about the budget being available to review.

"Why wasn't the contract posted there [on the school website] for the public," she asked School Board Attorney Vic LaPira.

"Because there is no legal requirement," LaPira said. "It was made available to the public on Sept 4. The public had to request it."

"But a best practice would be to post it, to really serve the community," Ting said. "Legally, we followed the process, but are we really doing the best practice?"

LaPira said all legal rules were followed in the process of renewing the superintendent contract.

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Equal Compensation to Peer Schools

Board Member Kathryn Worland of Rocky Hill summed up her understanding of the proccess and also commented on the petition.

"I thought it was interesting there was a petition with a chart, so I went and pulled all the information that is publicly available," she said. "The first thing I noticed that is concerning is that the chart is actually missing a couple rows. So, It presents Mary as being the fifth highest salary in Somerset County, but she is actually the eighth if the missing rows are added back in.

"So, whether that was a cut-and-paste error, or whatever that may be, I think it's important to have that as a benchmark. Next, I was thinking about what it means to have a comparable salary. A district like our has a lot of high performance and a lot of opportunites ahead that we wouldn't want to squander by having someone in this role who isn't adept at handling this.”

Worland continued: “Well, what should a superintendent's salary be? The reality is: these are what the superintendent salaries are in our county, if we want to look at it geograhically. And, if we look at the districts we compare ourselves to for our budgetary analysis, we're not the top. And, we are an incrediably high performing district. We want to retain great talent.

"I never felt pressure when it [the budget] was introduced, that we had to make a [rushed] decision immediately. I think we've taken the time, we've done the New Jersey Quality Single Accountability Continuum (NJQSAC) evalution so we have a good understanding of what Mary has brought to this district.

"We need to reflect on whether we think [McLoughlin] should be compensated commensurately with her peers — and that is what the contract is looking to do. That's my perspective.”

Worland added, "We were elected to our full three-year term, so it is our responsibility to act until our term is concluded and to vote in favor or against. We've had the opportunity to talk about it and to share our concerns with the board president if we so chose to.”

How the board voted
Cooke Franco-Herman	Absent
Christina Harris	Yes
Vanita Nargund	No
Julius Nunez	No
Francine Pfeffer	Yes
Maria Spina	Yes
Patrick Todd	Yes
Kathryn Worland	Yes
Ting Wang	No

Watch the full three hour meeting at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fviQJdHcBew&t=7811s.