HUNTINGTON – Following an executive session at the end of Wednesday’s meeting, the Gateway Regional School Committee returned to open session to vote on a three-year contract extension for Superintendent Dr. David B. Hopson. The vote was 9-1-1, with Anne-Marie Buikus of Montgomery voting no, and Jeff Wyand of Huntington abstaining. Ron Damon and Kara Rousseau of Huntington and Heather Morgan of Russell were absent for the vote.
Gateway superintendent Dr. David B. Hopson and grant writer Wendy Long at a concert in December.
“Most of the school committee members who spoke in favor of the extension expressed that they want to see him finish work on several goals the committee and district have started. They also said the added stability will be a positive thing for staff and students,” said Michele Crane on Thursday.
Crane said there is no pay raise in the contract, but there are added vacation days and a few other minor changes. Following the vote, Hopson accepted the offer.
“I am pleased that the school committee has the confidence in me to extend my contract for three years allowing me the opportunity to complete the Gateway 2025 planning and continue implementing our shared goals for improving student opportunities,” Hopson said later, referring to the district’s Gateway 2025 visioning process currently underway.
Hopson’s six-year contract was due to end in 2018; the extension goes until August, 2021. If he had not been offered an extension, the school committee would have had to budget and plan for a superintendent search in the next fiscal year (FY18).
Crane said one of the goals on which the school committee is working with the superintendent is to improve collaboration between the district and the towns regarding budget concerns. Hopson regularly attends monthly meetings of the Gateway Towns Advisory Committee, made up of governing and financial officers of each of the member towns.
Another project in which Hopson is involved is the MA Rural Communities Coalition, which the Gateway School Committee voted to support in January. The coalition, comprised of rural school districts from across the state, has put forward a MA Rural School Aid Proposal that calls for tiered aid for rural public schools based on several factors: declining enrollment, low population density, per capita income, and a change in Chapter 70 education aid. Once applied, these factors would result in a tiered score that would provide between $50 and $1,000 more per student in Chapter 70 aid.
A planned summit meeting of the coalition, which is led by the Mohawk Trail-Hawlemont Regional School District in Shelburne Falls, was cancelled Thursday night and rescheduled for March 7.
This is Hopson’s fourteenth year as Superintendent of Schools at Gateway. Previously, he taught agriculture for twenty-two years in Connecticut, the last nineteen at Northwest Regional in Winsted. He is also the owner/operator, along with his wife Cheryl, of Laurel Hill Farm in Blandford. Laurel Hill is a working farm, selling hay and boarding horses.
