At the May 5, 2025 Monroe Township Board of Education meeting, after a closed-session discussion, the Board voted 6-3 to suspend Superintendent Chari Chanley with pay. 

We now want to ensure that Monroe secures better leadership moving forward. The Monroe community has, for four years, endured mismanagement and unbecoming conduct at the hands of Chari Chanley. 

Under her leadership, since 2021, Chari Chanley:

• Went viral in 2023 for exploding at a parent’s accusations of bullying at a public board meeting, bringing shame and embarrassment to the Monroe community 
• Unceremoniously terminated the employment of a successful and much loved athletic director, under the guise of changing a “job description” in March 2023
• Depleted the surplus fund balance from $9.5 million in 2021 to $2.5 million in 2023. Where did $7 million dollars go?
• Proceeded to ask the Monroe Township taxpayers in 2024 for an additional 2.4% TAX HIKE for new positions that were never filled or necessary.
• Oversaw changes to the Transportation Department, which resulted in mass resignations and a bus accident that sent children to the hospital.
• Was unresponsive to parents’ demands for information for that same bus accident 
• Put forth recommendations to the Board of Education regarding the employment matters related to herself, her husband, and her son in a conflict of interest
• Recommended her own permanent superintendent contract in July of 2022 in another conflict of interest
• Earned reprimands from an Administrative Law Judge and the Commissioner of Education for recommending her son for employment in April 2024
• Directed by an Administrative Law Judge to stop violating district policy by not getting course approval from the Board of Education in a September 2024 decision
• Eliminated long-standing teacher coordinator positions that were proven to be effective, and against staff’s wishes
• Limited teacher Genesis access only to students in their assigned classes, compromising safety and security.
• Lowered the graduation requirement from 130 to 120 credits 
• Did nothing to address overcrowding in the high school 
• Multiplied the number of administrative positions and salaries, while cutting teaching staff. Take a look at all of the 17% overage positions that are being approved instead of filling empty positions.
• Worked from home instead of taking sick days, despite no policy allowing her to do so. Revealed that she was permitting her staff, i.e. fellow administrators to do this as well.
• In April of 2022, she personally escorted the business administrator, who had been working in the district for nearly 20 years, out of the building, under the guise of an investigation that yielded no findings of wrongdoing, and cost the district over $200k.
• In 2024, Chanley rejected, to their faces, State legislators recommendations and guidance regarding the feasibility of implementing Pre-k and full-day Kindergarten, despite clear community outcry for both, demanding a random number of $15 million, without showing any data to support that. 
• Knowingly misrepresented the status of her progress towards her doctorate to make herself look like a better candidate for Acting Superintendent, despite complete lack of standard certification and central office experience.
• As a candidate for the permanent Superintendent position, hid the progress of her doctorate from the Monroe public, especially after private citizens found she had been enrolled in 2008, should have graduated in 2011, and claimed she already achieved the doctorate between the years of  2013-2018, going as “Dr. Chanley” in middle school yearbooks. 
• Reported on her resume that she would get her doctorate in December of 2021, when in fact she had instead secretly registered for yet another one-credit independent study course to stay enrolled in the program and further milk the district for over $40k in tuition reimbursement since staying in the program since 2008. 
• Sued a private citizen for “tortious interference,” accusing them of preventing her from achieving a doctorate,” as a form of retaliation against the private citizen for exposing her taxpayer-funded vacation to Florida, as well as this private citizen exposing her tuition scam. Chanley repeated the same course 15 times at taxpayer expense.  This lawsuit was dismissed in its entirety. 
  
  With a clear pattern of disregard for ethics and accountability, we ask the Monroe Township Board of Education to thoroughly investigate Chari Chanley and ensure that the staff and students of Monroe are given the ethical and visionary leadership they deserve.