To the editor,
From 1995 to 2007, I served as the superintendent of schools in Marblehead. I spent another 24 years serving as superintendent in the communities of Melrose, Nahant, and Spencer, MA, and
Tewksbury Township, NJ. It is from this vantage point that I write to express deep concern about the manner in which the current school committee locked in the current superintendent for another three years.
A decision of this magnitude was an opportunity for the school committee to demonstrate the accountability and transparency they so often claim to value and promise to stakeholders.
Instead, the school committee met and voted to approve a three-year contract without publicly sharing its terms in advance and without posting the documents which supposedly informed their decision. These included a stakeholder survey conducted last month (less than a year into the interim superintendent’s tenure) and the school committee’s evaluation of said interim superintendent (which was posted for public review only after the vote to approve the permanent contract had passed).
As if that wasn’t enough, the vote to approve this 3-year contract to the interim superintendent was held on a Wednesday morning at 9:00 a.m. – a time when precious few educators, students, parents or community members could attend. It was neither recorded nor posted, departing from the committee’s
past practice. Public comment, typically offered at full school committee meetings, was notably absent from the agenda.
And all of this took place less than two weeks before a contested election.
This is not how public institutions build trust. This important decision was handled in such a manner as to further erode public confidence and undermine the very leadership it sought to secure.
I sincerely hope that the Marblehead School Committee finds its way back to open, inclusive, and transparent engagement with the community it serves.
Sincerely,
Dr. Phil Devaux
Former Superintendent Marblehead Public Schools
Former Massachusetts Superintendent of the Year
Former President Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents
