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Date: 5/16/2023
EASTHAMPTON — As the vote for an interim superintendent draws closer, the Easthampton School Committee met on May 8 to discuss resumes from four interim candidates and to narrow down the interview dates for the candidates.
The decision to move forward with an interim superintendent comes after West Springfield interim Superintendent Vito Perrone had his offer rescinded and Dr. Erica Faginski-Stark withdrew from consideration for the permanent superintendent seat. Since then, the committee has been working with representatives from the Massachusetts Association of School Committees to field resumes from potential interim candidates.
Before reviewing the candidates’ applications, the committee spent over an hour narrowing down which dates would work for interviews. Ultimately the committee decided to conduct interviews with the candidates on Saturday June 3, Sunday, June 4 and potentially Monday, June 5, depending on how many interviews will be conducted. If interviews are required at the June 5 meeting, a vote would take place at a Monday, June 12 meeting. Prior to the interviews, the candidates will be conducting site visits the week of May 22.
Committee Chair Cynthia Kwiecinski said scheduling the site visits before the interviews could provide benefits to the process.
“Since we can’t meet, that would give the potential candidates time to come into the district, meet with people, then do a meet and greet. The benefit of that is two-fold. One, they would not be exhausted the night of their interview, and the second is that that would give the community a week to process who they met, what they were thinking and send us emails so that they could feel like they weighed in and gave us some feedback,” she said.
Mayor Nicole LaChappelle said she was in favor of conducting the site visits that week.
“It goes to your point that everybody has a chance in the community and folks can get a good idea of site visits and we don’t have to be rushed,” she said.
The committee unanimously agreed with the site visit dates. During those site visits, candidates will tour the schools, meet with staff, students and members of the community.
With dates for the interviews and site visits finalized, the committee reviewed four candidates that had submitted resumes from Western Massachusetts. The candidates discussed at the meeting were Roland Joyal, Marlene DiLeo, Mary Jane Rickson and Maureen Benienda.
For each candidate, member Marin Goldstein read each resume off to the committee, before members of the committee provided their thoughts on each candidate, beginning with Joyal.
Goldstein explained that Joyal was a licensed superintendent who has worked as a superintendent/executive at the Lower Pioneer Valley Education Collaborative, an assistant superintendent with Chicopee Public Schools, a principal at Chicopee High School, an assistant principal at Putnam Vocational Technical Academy in Springfield and as a science teacher. While lengths of time for each of those positions were not listed, MASC representative Liz Lafond spoke to Joyal’s experience.
“Roland is at a place in his career where he’s retiring and at his age, if he is able to retire with 80%, he started right out of college, he’s had some experience,” she said.
Member Ben Hersey said he was interested in offering Joyal an interview.
“I like the range of experience, seems like he has been around a while and knows his way in this position, so I would be interested in talking more,” he said.
For DiLeo, Goldstein said she has a doctorate of education and has a superintendent license. She is the outgoing superintendent of Ware Public Schools after eight years of work, she served as a principal at Ware Junior-Senior High School, as well as the principal of Stanley M. Koziol school in Ware and as a principal at one of Holyoke’s elementary schools. DiLeo also spent time as health educator coordinator and physical education teacher in Holyoke.
LaChapelle said that she worked previously with DiLeo and spoke highly of her, including her experience with a variety of ages and “boots on the ground” work.
“She is a very even presentation and has a lot of compassion and understanding around – not just special needs – but kids who need a little extra touch as far as helping get them into a class or what not,” she said. “She was also a principal at Holyoke before that, just the schools she was ar in Holyoke, they’re very challenging schools in receivership and all of that.”
Rickson has superintendent certification and her most recent experience is a principal at Winchendon Public Schools Murdock High School, she was the interim superintendent at Northbrook Public Schools and she was also the director of career and technical education at Baypath Regional Vocational School. Goldstein added that Rickson has a variety of experience as a superintendent, director of curriculum instruction and an assistant superintendent. Goldstein said he was hesitant about Rickson because she had a lot of one-year positions.
“It means her willingness to step in and help, potentially, as sort of these interim superintendent positions, but it’s a lot of different districts, a lot of different places for short periods of time, that’s one flag that came up for me,” he said.
In speaking to Rickson, Lafond said she was “hesitant” about the Easthampton interim position.
“She’s got a unique experience set with having done that a couple of times already for a one-year interim and I did tell her there was the potential there depending on what the committee decided in terms of the next search for an extension to two years,” Lafond said.
Committee member Megan Harvey said she was not concerned about the one-year jumps.
“To have somebody who has done this tricky one year position successfully two times, that’s intriguing because it could be helpful to ask someone who knows just what they’re walking into,” she said.
LaChapelle added that she was interested in hearing Rickson’s perspective on coming in as an interim, as well as her work at vocational schools. Kwiecinski also said that she was “not concerned” about Rickson moving around.
Goldstein said that Benienda has her superintendent certification, is currently the interim superintendent at Quaboag Regional School District, was the former superintendent in Worcester and also served as a principal at South High Community School in Worcester. She also has experience as a principal and assistant principal at other schools and 18 years as a teacher of moderate special needs in Worcester.
LaChapelle said she was interested in speaking with Benienda because of her experience in both a large and smaller district.
“She has experience in both sized districts and I like that her professional association and her contacts with the community seem really strong,” she said.
Other members of the committee echoed similar sentiments and Harvey said she was interested in interviewing Benienda because of her background in special education.
The committee unanimously agreed to offer interviews and site visits to all four candidates.
Along with the external candidates discussed at the May 8 meeting, the district also did an internal job posting for any candidates within the district that may want to apply for the interim role, those applications were due on May 12. On May 16 the committee reviewed resumes from any internal candidates that may have applied. This meeting occurred after Reminder Publishing’s deadline, but coverage of the meeting will appear in the May 25 edition of The Reminder.