Editor’s note: This letter is in reference to the School Committee’s last-minute decision to call off a vote regarding Superintendent Dr. John Buckey’s contract last week and was submitted prior to Buckey’s resignation Wednesday.
To the editor:
Like many of us, I’ve watched the saga of another school superintendent being run out of town by the Marblehead School Committee with sadness and anger. Seven superintendents in 15 years and counting!
The Marblehead School Committee continues to be a highly politicized and seemingly dysfunctional body. Nowhere is this more evident than in its recent conduct; from publicly sending contradictory signals on the job performance of the superintendent, to a new member who did not respect the voters enough to tell them of his [complaint] against the superintendent (prior to the vote), to the newly reconstituted committee hiding behind what appears to be its real intentions in “executive session” and “on the advice of counsel.”
This behavior is an insult to the taxpayers, children, and faculty of our schools.
I suggest that next year when the School Committee comes before us to request yet another tax increase to fund the school budget, voters take this conduct into account. Ask yourselves how many of your tax dollars have been wasted buying off superintendents over the years along with the costs of hiring executive search firms to source new candidates for the position. This is money that could have been better spent educating our children.
Sincerely,
Harlan Strader
Marblehead