Candidate comes forward

By G. Michael Dobbs

Managing Editor

SPRINGFIELD The controversy over the hiring Katherine Ashe, wife of School Committee member and mayoral candidate Thomas Ashe, deepened last week when the only candidate with all of the required certification for the teaching job at Putnam Vocational High School stepped forward.

In light of this development, School Committee member Antoinette Pepe said she "definitely would like, at the least, for Ashe to ask for his wife's immediate resignation."

"Hiring the most qualified person that's what it should be about," Pepe added.

In an interview conducted with Reminder Publications on Oct. 26, Rhonda Moran of Springfield explained how she had hand-delivered to the School Department an application for the teaching position in the cosmology department on April 28.

Moran is a Putnam High School graduate who has served the school's Advisory Council for 10 years. She has also been a substitute teacher at Putnam. She is a graduate of Westfield State College and is certified to teach in vocational high schools by the Commonwealth. She has been a instructor at Chameleon's School of Hair Design in Northampton for four years.

"There's nothing wrong with my [present] job. I want to fulfill what I went to school for," Moran explained.

There were three positions open in cosmology and, according to Pepe, Cornelia O' Hare, the School Department's executive director of Human Resources told her on Oct. 26 that there had been only one candidate Moran for the job with the required certification. Teachers can be hired to work at vocational schools without certification, Pepe explained, if they are placed on a waiver, which requires them to earn their certification.

According to the state's General laws, Chapter 71 section 38G: "A education personnel hired by the school district must be appropriately certified for the position in which they are employed, unless the district has requested and received from the Department of Education a waiver of the certification requirement. The school committee continues to have authority under the certification statute to 'prescribe additional qualification' for educator positions, beyond basic certification."

Pepe said that waivers are requested when a school district can not find a certified candidate, but does find one with practical experience.

Moran said that she never received a call from Putnam High School Principal Kevin McCatskill about an interview and that she received one only because she and a city official she declined to name called McCatskill.

Moran finally spoke to McCatskill on July 25, who then scheduled an interview with her on July 27.

Although she thought the interview "went smoothly," Moran said that, "my feeling was that it didn't matter what I said when I went in there."

"They were looking for me to trip up," she added.

Moran said that McCatskill told her that she was not hired because she did not answer a question about classroom safety procedures as thoroughly as he thought she should have.

O'Hare said to Reminder Publications that McCatskill was one of three members of a committee who interviewed Moran. She said she could not comment on why Moran was not hired.

McCatskill has the final say on hiring, Pepe said. Pepe praised the principal for the many advancements at Putnam that have been made under his leadership, but expressed disappointment that he has not returned her calls on this and other issues.

"I was unfairly treated," Moran said. "I'm truly qualified."

McCatskill, the principal at Putnam defended his decision and said that was "common" to bypass someone with certification in order to "have the right fit."

McCatskill added he was looking for the "best [candidate] suited for our students."

He said he has respect for Moran and that his decision "had nothing to so with her personally."

"She is a very good person," he said.

The issue of the answer on the safety question was just one of the reasons for his decision. He said that Moran had asked for an example of problems in the interview and that was one of them.

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Brenda Branchini-Lage, another person who had been interested in a cosmology position at Putnam, has been requesting the School Department's hiring policy and looking for an explanation why the three jobs were not publicly advertised.

Despite her requests, she has not received the hiring policy and has not heard why these jobs were not published.

O'Hare said that the teaching jobs at Putnam were initially advertised within the School Department and then were later placed on the Department's web site. They were not advertised in any newspaper.

O'Hare said that some jobs receive only Internet postings, while others are the subject of newspaper ads.

O' Hare noted that over 400 teachers had been hired for the department for this school year.

Branchini-Lage has also written the Criminal Bureau of the Attorney General's office to see if the School Department had violated state law. Assistant Attorney General Kurt Schwartz, wrote Branchini-Lage on Oct. 19 that while this may not be a criminal matter, he has forwarded her complaint to other departments in the office.

"Brenda did not have equal opportunity," Pepe said.