HUNTINGTON – The Gateway Regional School Committee voted by one vote to award Supertintendent Dr. David Hopson a contract extension.
By a vote of seven in favor, six opposing and one abstention, Hopson’s new contract will be extended 14 months until August 31, 2018.
“I would only be willing to extend 14 months, because I intend to retire from Gateway in four years and two months, and I would commit to Gateway until that time if you extend my contract,” said Hopson. “If you don’t extend, in all likelihood I would stay for three years but I’d be looking to leave potentially.”
In his 20th year of working for the Gateway Regional District, Hopson added that he has applied for a handful of jobs in the past two years, and that he has been interviewed for every job he’s applied for.
“Technically, you can take no vote today, and in three months if I get a job offer, you could vote to extend and change it. That’s up to you as a committee,” he said. “I’m just trying to put my cards on the table.”
When Committee Member Michele Crane of Blandford put forward a motion to extend Hopson’s contract, seconded by Committee Member Ron Damon of Huntington, Committee Member Ruth Kennedy of Russell reiterated a point she had just made.
“I just read that we can’t vote on it until his contract is over,” she said, referencing a document that had been passed around the table earlier. “We can’t vote on this tonight.”
The document, written by Attorney Russell Dupere to then-School Committee Chair Beth Brett on May 31, 2013, addressed the issue of whether the School Committee is limited to extending a superintendent’s contract for more than one year.
Hopson told Kennedy that he was told by Dupere, the School Committee’s legal counsel, that a vote to extend for one year can take place.
Following a short heated exchange between Crane and Kennedy over the quality of the district’s representation, Chair Gretchen Eliason of Worthington sought to get the meeting back on track, and stated she didn’t see anything wrong with allowing a contract to expire before voting on it.
“Our teachers committed to a one-year contract this year because they wanted to be flexible,” she said, referencing Worthington’s attempts to withdraw from the district as a sticking point. “I don’t think it would go over well to give a contract extension when there are three years left on the contract and the teachers have committed to renegotiating next year.”
Eliason said that the contract does allow the superintendent to leave at any time with 90-days notice, “whether he’s got three years left or four and a half or six.”
When Committee Member Shirley Winer of Chester asked Hopson to clarify his personal timeline, he said he has set his retirement date to grant ample time to find a replacement, as opposed to leaving abruptly.
Damon said that he would consider the committee not renewing his contract “an insult” if he was in Hopson’s shoes.
“I have confidence in him (Hopson),” said Damon. “If he leaves, we’re going to assume one heck of a mess and expense replacing him. I know down the road we’re going to have to, but I don’t want to do it any sooner than we have to.”
Crane said that a vote on an extension relates back to how a superintendent is evaluated, and stated that the majority of respondents on Hopson’s evaluation rated him proficient or exemplary.
“That doesn’t add up to people not wanting to give that vote of confidence,” she said.
Sue Levreault of Worthington disagreed.
“Currently, Dr. Hopson has three years left on his contract and that’s three whole years. The teaching staff took a one-year contract and I think we have confidence in them,” she said. “I don’t think we’re saying that we don’t have confidence. We’re saying that we’re not really sure what is going to happen next year.”
Hopson pointed out that the difference between evaluating teachers and administrators is not fair.
“Teachers have tenure. Whether they have a contract or not, they’re still going to work,” he said. “Any administrator whose contract runs out, is done. There’s no recourse. When your contract is up, you’re done.”
Huntington Finance Committee Member Darlene McVeigh, whose husband was a longtime teacher in the district, was in attendence, and told Hopson that teachers can be still be cut back after a year, referring to his comparison as “disingenuous.”
“(A teacher’s contract) is automatically renewed unless they get laid off,” Hopson said, adding that any administrator can get laid off should budget needs require it. “In essence, an administrator and teacher are on the same one-year contract if you’re really looking at the fact that, for budgetary reasons, you can lay off anybody.”
Kennedy said that Hopson had told her on two occasions that he would retire at the end of his contract in 2017.
Huntington Selectman John McVeigh also spoke directly to Hopson.
“We have highway superintendents and police chiefs who, six months comes to their time, we start rolling it out. Do we want to hire somebody else? We appoint three years, these guys know this,” he said.
McVeigh added that he didn’t appreciate Hopson ‘making idle threats’ saying he would leave and accused him of using a bully pulpit.
Hopson responded that his intent was to lay out his intentions as basically as he could and that there are differences between the “subsets” applying for school and highway superintendents.
McVeigh responded angrily “you’ll never get it” to Hopson, and walked out of the meeting, referring to the superintendent as a “waste of money” and the district would be better off without him.
Gateway Business and Finance Officer Stefanie Fisk personally endorsed Hopson, adding that the district is on the verge of serious changes.
“There’s a lot of things on the district’s plate. You might have gone through superintendent searches, but I’ve worked for them all,” she said. “Some have been nightmares, and you’re in such a position right now where you have someone who is vested in the district, who cares about the welfare of the children, and I think it is the right time.”
