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Date: 12/18/2023
EASTHAMPTON — Pending the approval of a waiver from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and her acceptance, interim Superintendent Maureen Binienda will continue to be Easthampton’s superintendent for the 2024-2025 school year.
After initially bringing the topic up at its previous meeting on Nov. 29, the Easthampton School Committee continued its discussion around the extension of Binienda before bringing it to a vote.
Committee member Megan Harvey, who was serving as the chair of the meeting because regular Chair Cynthia Kwiecinski had to participate remotely, recapped why the committee was looking to extend Binienda.
“Given the stability of the situation, but also given all the factors within our community, the fact that we have contract negotiations upcoming, the fact of the timeline of the next search, all of that kind of stuff, that’s where it’s coming from,” she said.
Harvey explained that the district needed the waiver from DESE because Binienda is a retired superintendent. In order to receive the waiver, Mayor Nicole LaChapelle explained that the committee needed to provide proof that the district was still working to hire a permanent superintendent.
“With the waiver, even before you apply for it, you need to demonstrate that you are pushing forward with a permanent superintendent search. So, the thought would be we’ve asked for an extension from the current and that the new school committee would work with the proposed deadline,” LaChapelle said. “We will have to show DESE that timeline in our minutes to prove it’s not just scout’s honor.”
LaChapelle added that she “felt confident” about getting approval for the waiver.
Committee member Ben Hersey, who was not in attendance for the previous discussion, said he was in favor of extending Binienda.
“To me this is a no-brainer, across the board the feedback feels like 100% positive. I just ran into a parent in the Mountain View parking lot the other day who was like, ‘we’re loving Maureen,’” he said. “It’s just encouraging to know that we have a real positive person at the head here.”
Hersey added that by extending Binienda’s contract it gave the committee time to extend the permanent search.
“It just felt like we can really intentionally attend to all the elements of the search, so this is an easy fix for me,” he said.
While committee member Laura Scott said she was happy with the work Binienda has done since taking her position, she was concerned about the timing of the extension with new committee members starting at the beginning of January.
“I think Maureen Binienda has been a godsend, I am thankful for you every day,” she said. “As a finite matter of process, I still firmly believe the optimal timeline would be for the new School Committee to be seated in January and take this official vote. I am not convinced the public has a real awareness of what’s going on.”
She added that she supported the idea of the extension but not the timing of the vote.
Kwiecinski said there was no point in holding off on voting until January, specifically because of what the new School Committee will be facing between contract negotiations and the budget process.
“The public has known we were going to make this vote in November in December, we talked about it publicly at repeated School Committee meetings, as we brought Superintendent Binienda on board, so I do believe that the public knows,” Kwiecinski said. “Holding a vote later on, just for the ceremony of it, when there is so much more they are going to get hit with just does not make any sense to me.”
While not yet on the committee, incoming members Eric Guyette and Linda Markee both voiced their support for extending Binienda during the meeting’s public comment session.
“I feel very positive about us extending this contract for this time. I think it’s very important that we thoughtfully consider the candidates for superintendent in the future with input from our community,” Markee said. “I fully support this vote.”
Ultimately the committee voted 6-1 to offer Binienda a year extension, pending the DESE waiver, with Scott being the lone vote against the motion.
As it was their last meeting with the committee, Kwiecinski and member Marin Goldstein were thanked and honored by the committee for their service.