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Date: 6/5/2023
EASTHAMPTON — The Easthampton School Committee officially has two new members after former members Laura Scott and Sarah Hunter were voted in to fill two vacancies during a meeting on May 31.
Following the resignations of former members Shannon Dunham and Laurie Garcia in April, a convention was formed between the School Committee and City Council to fill the vacancies. Prior to voting, the convention met on May 10 to establish its guidelines and again on May 18 to interview eight candidates for the meeting.
The purpose of the May 31 meeting was strictly to use ranked choice voting to determine the two members before the new members were sworn into their positions. Each candidate was ranked one through nine by each member of the convention before ballots were read off and displayed for the public to see. To pick the two members, two rounds of voting were conducted.
In the first round of voting, Scott won with seven first place votes. This vote had to go through several steps as the other candidates had to be eliminated one by one since Scott did not have an absolute majority of the first-place votes.
For the second round, Scott was removed from the ballot and each ranking for each candidate was moved up by one, with one less candidate on the ballot. After the first step, Hunter was declared the winner because she received eight first place votes after the adjustment, which was a majority of the 14-member convention, eliminating the requirement for additional steps.
During the May 18 interviews Scott said she was looking to bring in experienced leadership to the committee.
“This time calls for some steady leadership, experience and an attempt to restore some of the public confidence in public officials and our school administration,” she said. “I think the top two priorities would be the value of our faculty and staff, and the value of all individual learners, their diversity of needs and diversity of strength.”
During her interview, Hunter discussed her vision for Easthampton’s schools.
“My vision for our public schools is that they are and remain a place where every child is valued, where everyone’s contributions are appreciated, where employees feel respected and heard, and where children can grow up thinking of themselves as part of a greater whole,” Hunter said. “Students should graduate from 12th grade not just with passing test scores, but with an understanding of themselves as citizens, as changemakers, as critical thinkers and as people whose perspectives have value.”
With Hunter and Scott set to interview interim candidates for the superintendent position, both gave their thoughts about who they wanted to see fill that role during their interviews.
Hunter said, “In a new superintendent I am looking for someone who is able to balance the needs of the community as a whole with the needs of the individual student. This is a really tricky job and there are times when the needs of individual students and the needs of the community may appear initially to be at odds with each other.”
Hunter said she is also looking for a candidate who has an understanding of education at the state level and is able to work well with the community, as well as the School Committee.
Scott said she was looking for self-awareness and competency in an interim superintendent.
“My top priority is competency. I think you measure that competency in a role like a superintendent, you weigh that up against a level of their own profound self-awareness. Their ability to recognize their strengths and weaknesses, and tailor that to fit our distinct needs in our community,” she said. “We have some really standout administrators in support positions, so I think you would have to weigh their competencies and strengths and weaknesses up against the support staff they would be walking into,” she said.
The full interviews are available for viewing at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYcinaP_nlk.
Scott and Hunter’s first task as School Committee members was to interview candidates for the interim superintendent seat, which was after Reminder Publishing’s deadline, coverage of the interviews and decision will appear in a future edition of The Reminder.