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Date: 3/15/2023
NORTHAMPTON — Four finalists for the permanent superintendent position in Northampton were announced during a special School Committee meeting on March 6.
Josh Dickson, Northampton’s director of student services and chair of the Superintendent Search Committee, announced that Educational Consultant and former Bozrah Public Schools interim superintendent Portia Bonner, Berkshire Regional Hills Regional School District Director of Teaching and Learning Jonathan Bruno, Pittsfield Public Schools Deputy Superintendent Marisa Mendonsa and Tara Tiller – the chief finance officer at the Cheatham County School District in Nashville, TN – are the four candidates for the permanent superintendent position at Northampton Public Schools (NPS).
The Superintendent Search Committee reviewed applications and conducted interviews over the past few weeks before landing on the four finalists.
“The screening committee received a total of 11 applications,” said Dickson. “We were fortunate to receive a diverse pool of candidates which included individuals from both Massachusetts as well as educators from across the eastern seaboard.”
According to Bonner’s LinkedIn, she served as the superintendent of East Haven Public Schools for just under four years. She then served as the interim superintendent for the Bozrah Public School District from 2021 to 2022.
Bruno, meanwhile, served as a teacher and registrar in the Boston Public Schools for 17 years before becoming a special education teacher at Region 1 Schools in Falls Village, CT. Since then, he has served as the director of teaching and learning for Berkshire Hills Regional School District for the last two-and-a-half years.
Mendosa has spent most of her career in the Western Mass. area, serving as the principal at the Amherst Regional Middle School and Springfield Public Schools for a combined five years. She then served as the principal for five years at Mohawk Trail regional High School before becoming the deputy superintendent for Pittsfield Public Schools for the past year-and-a-half.
Tiller served on the Dickson County Board of Education for 10 years before becoming the Cheatham County School Board chief academic officer for four-and-a-half-years. Since then, Tiller has served as the chief operations and finance officer of the Cheatham County School District for well over five years
The School Committee and school district have spent the last several months devising a plan to hire a permanent superintendent after former Superintendent John Provost took a superintendent job at the Hampden-Wilbraham School District this past summer.
Since then, Jannell Pearson-Campbell has served as the interim superintendent of Northampton Public Schools. She began her journey in education 22 years ago and has worked as a classroom teacher, principal and assistant director of education. She was officially hired by the district in mid-July.
During her short tenure with the school, Pearson-Campbell has filled key vacancies in the school district. Aside from hiring Roberta Jones as the district’s business manager, she also hired William Wehrli as the permanent high school principal and promoted Lauren Marien from interim principal at JFK Middle School to permanent principal of the school.
Back in October, the School Committee chose the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC) as the firm responsible for assisting the district in finding a permanent superintendent for the next school year.
In mid-January, the committee instituted a timeline for when the new superintendent would be hired. According to the timeline on the website, the goal is to conduct finalist interviews and site visits during the week of March 20 and select the desired candidate around that time, as well. The timeline is tentative, as of press time.
With the four finalists selected, Dickson said that the search committee recommends that the full School Committee conduct site visits and/or community forums at each candidate’s current and former district to gain an understanding of how diverse stakeholders viewed each candidate.
“I’m really excited to meet these four finalists,” said Ward 5 committee member Dina Levi. “I have incredible faith that the [search committee] found us a really strong group of finalists.”
Readers can visit the NPS website for more updates on the schedule for hiring a permanent superintendent.