TOMS RIVER – Mayor Daniel Rodrick filed suit against the Middletown School District for what he called a targeted effort to destroy his teaching career in retaliation for political moves he made leading the township.
“After years of publicly exposing wasteful spending, political patronage, and misconduct in local government, Rodrick became the target of a coordinated effort designed to destroy his teaching career, damage his reputation, and silence his reform-driven agenda as Mayor of Toms River,” a press release from his attorney, Donald F. Burke Jr., read.
Rodrick said he’d taught for 23 years and had been consistently rated “highly effective.”
Tenure charges were brought against him by the district in December of 2024 for performing Toms River municipal work during class time, among other charges (see below).
Rodrick said that the tenure charges came after he made cost-cutting measures in town hall. He called them falsified disciplinary claims and manipulated evaluations. He also noted that his confidential personnel files were released illegally, and accused his attackers of stalking and surveillance, and the dissemination of defamatory political propaganda.
“This is about more than my job – this is about protecting taxpayers and standing up to powerful political insiders,” Rodrick said. “When entrenched interests realized they could not intimidate me into silence, they tried to end my career and destroy my reputation. I refuse to back down.”
He said that the actions against him at school intensified in response to his work cutting costs in town hall, for example: blocking the attempted sale of public land in Toms River for a fraction of its value; terminating political patronage jobs, including a six-figure “Confidential Aide” position held by political consultant Art Gallagher; replacing politically connected insurance brokers, saving taxpayers millions; ordering investigations and lawsuits involving misuse of public funds, including a $2 million claim against Silverton First Aid Squad, Inc.; opposing development deals that would have benefited politically favored developers.
He said the people in charge are senior leaders of the Middletown Township Board of Education, including its President and Vice President; political operatives connected to former Toms River Mayor Maurice “Mo” Hill; Art Gallagher and the entity Archangel Strategies, which allegedly helped engineer false narratives and defamatory online attacks; former Council President Kevin Geoghegan.
Geoghegan led Silverton First Aid before Rodrick ordered dispatchers not to send calls their way due to financial irregularities. No charges have been filed against Geoghegan or Silverton First Aid.
Rodrick alleges that through political connections, they manipulated teaching assignments, including placing Rodrick in classes he was not certified to teach in an intentional effort to engineer failure; created bogus tenure charges, seeking Rodrick’s termination and revocation of his tenure protection; fabricated claims and falsified spreadsheets allegedly created by Gallagher to justify tenure charges; released confidential school personnel files to political operatives, later posted on social media; crafted defamatory headlines, including a false report accusing Rodrick of indecent conduct – published by Gallagher-linked media; surveillance and stalking incidents; defamatory online attacks; political mailers designed to damage his employment opportunities; and targeted Rodrick’s wife, also a teacher in Monmouth County.
Through the lawsuit, Rodrick is seeking restoration of his employment rights; declaratory and injunctive relief; compensatory and punitive damages; accountability for all individuals involved; and production of public records unlawfully withheld from him.
The complaint asserts violations of the Open Public Records Act, the Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA), the New Jersey Civil Rights Act, and the New Jersey Constitution, among other claims.
“My message to the people trying to silence me is simple: I will not quit, I will not be intimidated, and I will not stop fighting for taxpayers,” Rodrick said. “Transparency and accountability are worth defending – no matter the cost.”
Middletown Superintendent Jessica Alfone said she had no comment because it is pending litigation.
Gallagher had no comment.
Geoghegan had no comment except for “Anybody can sue for anything. It doesn’t mean the info they’re putting out there is real.”
Tenure Charges
Rodrick was put on administrative leave from teaching effective December 20, 2024. At the time, he was assigned to Thorne Middle School.
According to the tenure charges, municipal work and personal phone calls were made during class time.
“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.
The mayor later told The Toms River Times that these calls were made to retain light bulbs for a class project.
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.
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.”
At the time of these tenure charges, Rodrick provided this newspaper with printouts showing that Gallagher’s company, Gallco, was paid $10,046.88 each by Middletown board members Frank Capone and Jacqueline Tobacco during their campaigns.
