State board: Three Freehold Regional officials must drop 'doctor' titles

State board: Three Freehold Regional officials must drop 'doctor' titles

By JOSHUA RILEY
EDUCATION WRITER

A state educational board has ordered the Freehold Regional superintendent and a current and a former administrator to stop using doctoral titles obtained from an apparent diploma mill.

If they do not, the administrators will face stiff fines, the state Commission on Higher Education said in letters sent late last month to Superintendent H. James Wasser, Assistant Superintendent Donna Evangelista, and retired Assistant Superintendent Frank J. Tanzini.

"Please advise me . . . that you have ceased appending the Ed.D. or Dr. designation to your name, which is legally impermissible in New Jersey because Breyer State University does not meet the statutory definition of a duly authorized institution," Director Jane Oates wrote in the letters, dated Aug. 21.

Oates gave them a month to comply with the order.

The Asbury Park Press first wrote about the administrators gaining the degrees from Breyer State in July.