WESTFIELD – During the open portion of the School Committee meeting Monday, City Council liaison Ralph Figy told the members that the citizens of Ward 2 don’t believe $10,000 for an outside agency for the superintendent search is needed.
“I never had as many phone calls on an issue as I have on this one,” Figy said.
During the meeting, School Committee vice chair Ramon Diaz, Jr., who is leading the search effort, asked the members to consider revising the same advertisement they ran when they hired Dr. Suzanne Scallion, which he said was “a good place to start.”
Diaz said he had reached out to the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC) and the Association of School Superintendents, who told him there is no standard ad, but they would both run one at no charge on their sites. Diaz said MASC would also post it in publications, and the only charge to the School Committee would be what the publications charged.
After reviewing the ad, member William Duval questioned the qualifications item that stated “eligible for licensure in Massachusetts.” During a discussion on licensure, Superintendent Suzanne Scallion suggested finding someone familiar with the Massachusetts system, or already having a license.
Other members noted that Scallion herself had been in California, and didn’t want to eliminate transfers from other states for candidates who might want to come back to Massachusetts, or from states with reciprocal agreements for licensure. Scallion suggested changing the wording to having licensure by July 1.
Regarding the budget of $9,500 that MASC charges to run the whole search process discussed at the last meeting, Diaz said another option with MASC is for them to get out the advertisement, send surveys out to the community, and review the initial pool of applicants for a cost of $1,500.
“What are we getting by having another entity do the search for us?” asked Kevin Sullivan. “If we’re looking for a local search, why do we need to use the outside entity?”
Diaz said he was told that they may receive a lot of applications.
“As far as a district for a superintendent, Westfield is very, very attractive. There’s not a lot of controversy, and there’s a lot of support,” he said, to a few chuckles among the members. “People look for districts like us.”
“I think keeping it in-house is a good idea,” Cynthia Sullivan said. She said the city has a human resources department, but her preference would be to keep the search in the school human resources department.
“On the first screening of the candidates, I would like to have some outside help,” Diaz said. He said MASC could tier the candidates for the School Committee, and look at the credentials.
Diaz said at the last meeting he laid out a process that included screening the applicants, then forming an ad hoc committee who would wean it down to ten applicants. The ad hoc committee, made up of administrators, teachers, parents, public officials and a School Committee member, would then meet with the ten applicants for one hour each. They would then choose the four applicants for the entire School Committee to interview. He asked the School Committee to vote on the process.
Duval asked if the School Committee would be able to see all the applications.
“You can look at every resume you want,” Diaz said. “This is our most important job. I don’t want to get it wrong.”
“Is this process the same thing you did five years ago?” Acting Mayor Brian Sullivan asked. “How much did it cost last time?”
“Zero,” Diaz said, except for the cost of advertisements.
“My guess is if a candidate is not paying attention to free ads, he or she is not our candidate,” Brian Sullivan said.
“I would say the only expense would be site visits,” Scallion said.
A motion was made and passed to approve the process for the superintendent search presented by the November 17 meeting by Diaz.
“We will do most of the search in-house,” Diaz said, but repeated that he would like help screening the applicants.
When asked how much that part alone would cost, he said he didn’t know, but would ask.
