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Date: 11/12/2020
SOUTH HADLEY – In a Special South Hadley School Committee meeting on Nov. 4, the committee announced that they pared down their candidates for superintendent to three individuals.
Superintendent Candidates
The three finalists for the open superintendent position are Dr. Diana L Bonneville, Dr. Carole Learned-Miller and Dr. Jahmal Mosley.
Bonneville is currently serving as the interim superintendent for the South Hadley Public Schools. She was appointed to that position nearly one year ago in December of 2019 following the resignation of former Superintendent Nick Young.
Learned-Miller is currently serving as the chief of staff at the New York City Leadership Academy.
Mosley is currently serving as the Nashua Public Schools superintendent in Nashua, NH.
School Committee Vice Chairperson Allison Schlachter explained the qualifications of the candidates, noting that they are “incredible candidates.” She added, “They are all very strong candidates and they deeply deserve to be in the finalists; we are lucky to have them moving on for the position of superintendent here in South Hadley.”
Schlachter continued to explain that though resumes are available for the public to view online, the committee created a short summary of each of the candidates for residents. Those summaries are as follows.
Dr. Diana L Bonneville: “We all know Dr. Bonneville, but what we might not know is that Diana Bonneville started her career at Southern Berkshire Regional School District where she taught social studies and world language and was also the department chair of her social studies department while she was there. She then spent seven years as assistant principal at Northampton High School, then five years as the middle and high school principal for Hadley Public Schools. In 2012 she entered our community in South Hadley as the high school principal. In 2019 she rose to the challenge and became our interim superintendent where she is today. Dr. Bonneville got her PhD in educational policy, research and administration from UMass Amherst.”
Carole Learned-Miller: “Carole Learned-Miller comes from Amherst, Massachusetts, and actually started her teaching career as a grade three teacher out toward Boston, and then became principal of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. [She] also has been an instructor, a coordinator of teacher education and lecturing, and currently for the last three years first was senior director, now chief of staff at the New York City Leadership Academy in New York. Carole is a Harvard School of Education graduate, also got her masters in education from Boston College and her undergrad was done at Smith College. She also is published, and has done various articles about equity at work, leading a trauma sensitive school and transforming teaching, just to name a few.”
Dr. Jahmal Mosley: “Dr. Jahmal Mosley started his career in the Cambridge and Worcester Public Schools as a special education teacher before entering the world of school administration. He was an assistant principal for four years in Massachusetts before becoming a principal in both Brattleboro, Vermont, and Somerset, Massachusetts. He then became an assistant superintendent of curriculum in the Sharon Public School System in Sharon, Massachusetts, and is currently the superintendent of schools for the city of Nashua in New Hampshire, so he has a lot of Massachusetts experience but is currently in New Hampshire. Dr. Mosley got his doctorate in education with a focus on education, administration, policy and research also at UMass Amherst.”
Schlachter noted that these summaries are the “tip of the iceberg” when it comes to the expansive backgrounds of each of these candidates’ careers. For those interested, resumes for each of the candidates are available on the South Hadley Public Schools website at https://www.southhadleyschools.org/Page/7557.
School Committee member Allyson Garcia asked Schlachter if the candidates who lived further away would be willing to relocate to the area. Schlachter explained that is a conversation that would take place during the interview process.
The next step, Schlachter explained, was for school committee members to call references and to set up community meetings. Each school committee member was assigned one candidate to work with over this process, with the exception of Schlachter, who was assigned to two.
“We really want to get a sense of these candidates, what they’re like to work with, what they’ve done in their communities,” Schlachter said.
School Committee Chair Kyle Belanger asked if these community meetings – which will involve members of the community that the candidates currently work with – will be a more formal interview setting, or if they would be more of a conversation. Schlachter noted these meetings are meant to be conversations.
Schlachter explained, “This is really just – the same as calling a reference really – really information gathering. This is our opportunity to get a sense of this person from people who know them in their communities, which is a really big deal because we really want to know their impact where they are.”
The committee is expected to have hosted these individual meetings with the candidates and their current communities over the course of the week of Nov. 9 to 13.
As the process continues, School Committee Member Christine Phillips and Schlachter reiterated that there will be further meetings with members of the South Hadley community including administrators and central office staff, teachers, community members and students.
Reopening
Also discussed briefly in the meeting, School Committee Member Charles Miles explained that the district is planning to do their best to “honor requests to work from home at the same time that we are going to do our best to provide in-person services to our special education students.”
The South Hadley School Committee voted in August to return to the school year fully-remote. With that said, within the plan, the committee worked in a phased approach with five gradual steps to reopening. For specifics on the South Hadley Public Schools reopening plan, go to https://www.southhadleyschools.org/Page/7516.
Miles noted that in a meeting, they reached tentative agreement around having a joint labor management safety committee to discuss metrics and make recommendations to the school committee as they move forward with their plans.
Phillips added that she wanted to commend the group that came together to discuss making these reopening decisions. “We are obviously trying to work toward a common goal, but there are differences of opinions on how to get there and when to get there, and I think that’s natural,” she explained, continuing, “The dialogue was extremely respectful and trying to think outside the box and be fair, but also understanding that we’ve talked about opening this district in chunks ... that’s going to take an entire group of people to do that, so we’re working through that deliberately. I felt very positive leaving that conversation.”
Community Conversation
In a slight tone shift to the upbeat meeting, Belanger shared that he needed to address a situation that he has noticed in recent weeks.
“Your school committee has read literally hundreds of emails from you over the last several months – it’s been awesome. Without your voice, we can’t read the will of the people that we swore an oath to serve, and we’re super grateful,” Belanger explained. “Recently, though, specifically the last few weeks, there’s been a distinct tone shift, and the shift hasn’t really been good.”
Belanger continued, sharing that he has witnessed in recent emails to the school committee “cruelty,” and stated that the tone has been “mean,” and that it’s “not becoming of the folks who are doing it.”
“Look – we have thick skin. You have to do the work that we’re doing during these times. But we cannot and will not entertain cruelty and genuine meanness,” he said, adding that there would come a day where the pandemic is over and the five school committee members would no longer be serving on the committee. “When that happens, the five of us are still going to be your neighbors. The five of us are still going to be parents with kids in the same plays, in the same band, on the same team as yours – and then you’ll have to ask yourself if being cruel was worth it to make yourself temporarily feel better in the middle of a global crisis.”
He closed, “I couldn’t have that not be said. I care deeply about each and every one who tunes in, and I care deeply about everyone on this call, and I really appreciate you all.”
Phillips then took a moment to explain that public comment has now shifted, and if a member of the public would like a letter to be read at the school committee meeting, they must come and read the letter themselves. “We’ve opened up this channel for people to speak for themselves,” she noted. Phillips then shared that there will now be a google doc posted prior to Zoom school committee meetings for members of the community to sign up for public comment so that it is an orderly and fair process.
South Hadley’s next school committee meeting will take place on Nov. 16.