Page 10 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • November 21, 2012 Franklin Lakes Former Woodside principal seeks reinstatement by Frank J. McMahon A legal battle between Dominick D. Rotante, the former principal of the Woodside Avenue School in Franklin Lakes, and Frank Romano, the superintendent of the K-8 school district, has begun with Rotante filing a lawsuit in Superior Court. Rotante is seeking to void his separation agreement with the district and be reinstated as principal of the elementary school. Woodside Avenue School has a professional staff of 65 and serves a school community of approximately 300 students in kindergarten through grade five, including two special education classes. Rotante had been principal of Woodside Avenue School since July 1, 2004. Prior to that, he was the assistant principal at Memorial Elementary School in Montvale from 2003-04, and teacher/assistant to the principal at the E.H. Bryan School in Cresskill from 1998 to 2003. In a press release issued by Rotante’s media relations spokesman, Lee Navlen, Rotante claims he accepted the choice to take a 10-month personal leave in August, and to resign as of June 30, 2013, in consideration of the young students in the school who require a stable educational environment. However, he stated that he feels the end of his eight year career at the school was the result of a vendetta waged against him by Romano, who was hired in 2010. Rotante alleges that Romano wanted him out of the school district because he was a member of a previous hiring committee that had input into Romano’s failed attempt to become the district’s curriculum director a few years before he was offered the superintendent’s position by a new board of education. He further alleges that Romano did not inform the new board of his prior failed candidacy when he applied for the superintendent’s post. “I achieved a record of excellence, one that I’m very proud of and one that was impeccable until the day Mr. Romano arrived with an agenda that included getting rid of me,” Rotante stated. In his legal complaint, Rotante claims his comments about Romano’s rejection for the curriculum director’s position were supposed to be held in strict confidence, but they were leaked by members of the school board to Romano, who allegedly used threats, intimidation, and deception to solicit several school teachers to collect negative statements and allegations about him and then broadcast them to teachers, administrators, and board members. Rotante also alleges that when Romano found out that Rotante opposed his redistricting plan, he became angry and used trickery, deception, and fraudulent conduct to convince Rotante that a grievance memorandum that was (continued on page 19)