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Parent, residents urge Bayonne School District to correct alleged false student‑investigation finding and address evaluation practices
Summary
At the Dec. 17 Bayonne Board of Education meeting, parent Tesha Mato said an anti‑bullying specialist falsely attributed a sexual complaint to her son and asked the board to publicly clear him; a public commenter also warned that pre‑judged teacher evaluations are harming staff morale.
Parent Tesha Mato told the Bayonne Board of Education on Dec. 17 that district staff wrongly attributed a sexual complaint to her son and asked leaders to publicly clear his name.
"The assumption that my son made a sexual complaint against another teammate is not acceptable; it's untrue," Mato said during the public‑comment period, accusing the district's anti‑bullying specialist of sending erroneous documentation and saying the mistake had endangered her son's safety and standing with teammates. She said she received an earlier letter containing another student's information and cited problems she had raised "early on" in the investigation process.
Mato asked the board, Superintendent Kopaz and the varsity baseball coach to "clear these false accusations publicly with the team" so her son could regain trust. She told trustees the matter had created an unsafe and isolating environment for the student and called for immediate corrective action and a supportive environment for all players.
Another public commenter, identified as Mr. Jean Woods, said the district's supervisory practices risk driving educators from the profession. Woods said a supervisor told a teacher in advance that the employee would be scored lower under a new evaluation tool, creating stress and undermining morale. "A supervisor is supposed to support educators in their department and not discourage them," he said, arguing that forewarning a lower evaluation will cause staff to perform worse and leave.
Neither speaker reported a formal district response during the meeting; no action, vote, or district statement resolving the specific allegations was recorded in the meeting minutes. The public‑comment appeals and requests for corrective steps were heard but not acted on during the session.
The board adjourned after completing the agenda; no follow‑up motion or timetable for investigating the public commenters' requests was provided on Dec. 17.
