Parents of players from the Wayne Hills football team and residents of Wayne asked for Superintendent Mark Toback to resign during Thursday's Board of Education meeting
The Wayne Board of Education held its first public meeting Thursday night as fallout from an unprecedented eligibility case continues to create a schism between the district’s administration and parents from the Wayne Hills football team.
In the latter half of a four-hour session, multiple parents and residents of Wayne told the Board of Education that Superintendent Mark Toback acted “rashly” and “inappropriately” when he self-reported a potential eligibility violation to the NJSIAA without fully investigating the residency situation of two student-athletes.
As a result, the Board of Education will launch an independent investigation to determine if the situation was handled properly.
“The investigation is to determine what caused the Superintendent to move forward and self-report because truth be told, the Board didn’t find out about it until after the fact,” said Catherine Kazan, one of nine Board of Education members on hand for Thursday’s meeting. “The Board had no knowledge, the Board did not direct the Superintendent and that’s the purpose of the investigation. We want to know how and why.”
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In a statement read during the meeting, Toback said he went to the NJSIAA seeking guidance.
“My purpose for notifying the NJSIAA was to seek advice and to discuss the next steps given the deficiencies that I identified in our internal processes and other factual information we were able to gather that pointed to potential residency and eligibility problems.”
On Tuesday, the NJSIAA ruled that that the brothers in question — Hunter and Tyler Hayek — did not violate the association’s transfer rule and Wayne Hills was reinstated in the North Jersey, Section 1, Group 4 playoffs.
Still, parents and members of the community showed outrage as they read statements to the Board and called for Toback’s resignation.
“I want justice for the mistakes that were made by people in such high positions,” said Gene Costello, whose son, Tyler, is a senior on the football team. “They should never make mistakes like that. This wasn’t a little mistake. This was a mistake that affected thousands of people.”
Bill Brennan, whose son does not play football but is a student council representative and senior at Wayne Hills, also directed his focus at Toback.
“I want somebody held accountable,” Brennan said before addressing the Board. “There are so many levels of incompetency that it’s not incompetence. This was an intentional act. Someone had a goal in mind, and they got caught.”
NJSIAA Executive Director Steve Timko said in a statement Tuesday that “the Wayne Township School District and its administrators did not conduct a thorough investigation or provide due process to its students.”
Timko added that ”the original information provided to the NJSIAA by the district was incomplete and conflicting testimony offered by school administrators was unreliable."
Toback said after the meeting that the NJSIAA acted on the information he gave them even though he told them it was not fully investigated.
“I don’t want to get into the blame game with them because ultimately they’re all decent people, but they jumped the gun,” Toback said. I’ve said it since day one that they jumped the gun. They jumped the gun. They jumped the gun.”
The meeting reached its boiling point in the final minutes when Board member Allan R. Mordkoff got into a verbal altercation with several parents and left room after someone in the crowd shouted “I’ll kick your (expletive).”
Pat Lanni may be reached at planni@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @PatLanniHS. Like NJ.com High School Sports on Facebook.