MARBLEHEAD, MA — Marblehead Public Schools will have an interim superintendent for one more year after the School Committee on Monday confirmed its decision to delay the process of hiring a permanent person to the position for a year given the late date in the school calendar and the number of open leadership positions in the district.
The decision came at the recommendation of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees and amid a chaotic time in the district amid a budget process that includes $2.3 million in cuts to be determined, a “lack of confidence” open letter to the Committee signed by nearly 800 residents and the decision of current Interim Superintendent Theresa McGuinness not to pursue the position full-time.
“Given the work that has to be done in the district, I think having some sort of transition superintendent who is who is willing to dive in and do the hard work and make the hard decisions that we know we have on our plate I think is a great idea,” School Committee member Alison Taylor said during Monday night’s meeting.
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(Also on Patch: Embattled Marblehead School Committee Public ‘Conversation’ Date Set)
School Committee member Jennifer Schaeffner added: “We had fully intended to go forward with a permanent search. We were on the tail end of the season and then a number of things came up, including our current interim not wanting to go forward. So I think there are a number of extraneous issues that affected our ability to act within that season.”
Find out what's happening in Marbleheadwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The question still facing the Committee is whether to use a screening committee, which it did during the hiring of McGuinness and is traditionally done, or whether to conduct the whole process as an open committee.
The advantage of using an open committee approach, according to Chair Sarah Fox, is that it would be more transparent and more streamlined given that March begins this week. The advantage to the screening committee is the potential for more candidates and confidentiality among those looking to apply but not wanting that application to become public unless they are finalists.
The screening committee would determine which candidates would move on to the stage of public interviews, reference checks and ultimately the full School Committee debate and selection vote.
Fox said at this point in the year she thought it would not make much of a difference in the candidate pool — which she said could be four, at best — but the indecision among Committee members led to a delay in the final decision on the search method until Thursday.
That vote will now be an agenda item on the night of the “community conversation” with residents on the budget, hiring process and other issues described in the “lack of confidence” open letter.
(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)
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