By Josh Resnek
What is hoped for by Everett School Committee members to be a nationwide search for a new superintendent has begun.
The School Committee Monday night voted to move forward in the search effort by hiring the Massachusetts Association of School Committees(MASC) to lead the process in the hunt for a new administrative leader of the public schools.
“We have not had to do such a thing in 30 years. It is a daunting task and we want to do it the right way,” School Committeewoman Millie Cardello told the Leader Herald.
The School Committee action Monday night appropriating $20,000 to pay the MASC sets off the search.
It completes the process begun the week before when the School Committee’s Committee of the Whole voted favorably to move the motion forward to Monday’s meeting.
“This is not a process we want to rush into,” said Cardello. “Thereare presently 14 qualified possible superintendents working inside ourschool system, alone” she noted.
School Committeeman David Ela is presently the point man for thiseffort. He reached out to the MASC.
He reported back to his colleagues that the MASC is expert at conducting superintendent searches throughout the state for an abundance of communities searching for them.
At the present time, according to the MASC, there are 14 Massachusetts communities searching for a new superintendent – so Everett has somestiff competition to find a replacement for Mrs. Gauthier, whose actingposition may cause her to be at the helm for a lot longer than anyone imagined.
Under the MASC’s overview, the local search team will include four members of the School Committee, people from the community – andit could include members of the teaching staff from the public schools.
The search is complicated by one of the harsh realities of the education industry.
New superintendents in Massachusetts, wherever they are appointed, rarely stay in their positions for longer than three years – the exact amount of time it takes a lifelong education administrator to max outhis or her highest earnings to boost their final retirement packages andpensions.
Also, Everett’s public schools and the city environment itself, posea different milieu for potential candidates, who will likely be harder to find because of the city’s unique qualities and challenges.
So the race to find a new superintendent is on.
Expected time to finish this process?
Right now, that’s anyone’s guess – and no one is betting it will happen any time soon.