Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 4/11/2023
EASTHAMPTON — Following the Easthampton School Committee’s decision to rescind an offer to West Springfield interim Superintendent Vito Perrone, members of the community have protested the decision.
Background
Perrone was initially offered the job to become Easthampton’s superintendent on March 23 following a months long process to narrow down the next superintendent with Superintendent Alison LeClair set to retire at the end of the school year. The finalists were narrowed down to Perrone, Erica Faginski-Stark, Ludlow’s director of curriculum and instruction and Jonathan Bruno, director of learning and teaching at the Berkshire Hills Regional School District.
Following the interviews and deliberation, the committee voted 4-3 in favor of naming Perrone the superintendent, however following a March 30 executive session meeting, that offer was later rescinded.
The protest
On April 3, several hundred residents met for a protest at the Municipal Building, located at 50 Payson Ave. to express their concerns with the decision to rescind Perrone’s offer.
Easthampton Education Association President Shawn Sheehan said he had the privilege to work under Perrone before, when Perrone was a principal, and added how he was angered and ashamed by the School Committee’s process.
“He cared about the students, and he also cared about the teachers and the staff,” Sheehan said. “I was really looking forward to working with him, so I was really disappointed over the School Committee’s decision.”
School Committee member Laurie Garcia said she is going to try to do everything she can to enter into negotiations with Perrone, but she also begged the Easthampton community to treat the School Committee with respect when reaching out about their thoughts on the matter.
“I support Dr. Vito Perrone because I am the only member of the School Committee who has had the pleasure and the honor of working with him,” Garcia said. “But, I implore all of you, we have to handle this with civility and compassion.”
Many of the speakers spoke highly of Perrone’s leadership and condemned the School Committee’s actions over the last few weeks.
Kelley Brown, an Easthampton High School teacher for the last 22 years, stated that she encouraged Perrone to apply for the job before the entire process began because she was “excited” about the idea of having a candidate who wanted to be “not just a superintendent,” but “Easthampton’s superintendent.”
She felt the process was transparent up until the March 23 meeting and expressed contempt for the School Committee’s actions over the past couple of weeks.
“I am deeply concerned about the actions that concluded the selection process and wonder about the motivations of sending the police to the candidate’s home in the middle of the night,” Brown said. “Sending the police at 12:15 a.m. as a wellness check is aggressive and it appears to be thinly-veiled retaliation.”
City Councilor At-Large Brad Riley also questioned the choice of sending police to Perrone’s home in the middle of the night and implored that people step up during the next election cycle to challenge the current committee members if they disagree with their choices.
“Who here in attendance has ever received notification of job offers from a police department knocking on your door at midnight to make sure you’re still alive,” Riley asked. “Please Chair [Cynthia] Kweicinski, tell us if there’s something more to this so we can move forward, because to me, this doesn’t make any sense.”
Outside of the protest, other elected officials, including state Sen. John Velis (D-Westfield), questioned the decision, specifically with the use of the word “ladies.”
“If the allegations are true that the incoming Easthampton superintendent had his offer rescinded solely due to the way he addressed an email, then things have gone too far. This appears to be an over-the-top and disproportionate response to something, that if nothing else, could have been used as a teachable moment. Enough is enough,” Velis said. “One person’s perceived microaggression is how another person was brought up to politely and respectfully speak to women. If this was indeed the only issue, this was an opportunity to learn and grow as a community, not to tear down and divide.”
While it was reported that Executive and School Committee Assistant Suzanne Colby took issue with the use of the word “ladies,” she took to Facebook to say that that was not the case.
“I want to be clear I am a lady. I appreciate being called such and I appreciate being treated as such. To me the word represents respect,” she wrote on the Easthampton, MA Group Page. “I am not offended by the word or term, however I am respectful to those who may be offended by the word or term.”
She added that she played no part in the decision to rescind the offer to Perrone.
The School Committee meeting
While the School Committee was set to hear from the public and discuss the superintendent position both in open and executive session, the meeting immediately reached its Zoom capacity of 300 people and the livestream on Easthampton Media also went down with too many people attempting to watch. Following a discussion with the city’s legal counsel, Mayor Nicole LaChappelle, whole also serves on the School Committee, and Kweicinski agreed to postpone that meeting to a future date. That meeting was slated for Monday, April 10, which was after Reminder Publishing’s deadline, coverage of that meeting will appear in the April 20 edition of The Reminder.