NORTHFIELD — At least two residents in the Pioneer Valley Regional School District want to hear more from the School Committee about staff changes that include the resignation of Pioneer Principal Mike Duprey last week.
Scott Lyman, a former principal of Bernardston Elementary School and Gill Elementary School who plans on attending tonight’s school board meeting, said he suspects a combination of teachers and parents will want to discuss the recent changes.
“I think that everyone who is going is kind of unhappy over the amount of turnover within the district,” Lyman said. “There’s been a lot of resignations.”
The meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. in the Pearl Rhodes Elementary School Cafeteria, 7 Brattleboro Road in Leyden.
Duprey is not the first long-term staff member to leave the school since fall 2015. Computer technician Mike Holloway, director of Special Education Sharon Jones and Bill Wehrli, principal of PVRS before Duprey, round out the list.
“We want to save our principal, we want to save our teachers,” said Deb Tyson, a parent with two children currently attending Pioneer.
Superintendent Ruth Miller is expected to address citizens’ concerns as the first item on the meeting’s agenda. In addition to staffing concerns, Lyman believes the administration has practiced “fiscal irresponsibility.”
Providing an example, Lyman said that the financial concerns include moving the superintendent’s office from the PVRS campus as a result of mold. Scott McKusick, clerk of the works who examined the mold, said that it “didn’t indicate a major mold problem at all and could have been cleared up for not a large number of dollars,” as opposed to paying for a new space.
Lyman suspects that while the Pearl Rhodes Elementary School cafeteria is small, many concerned citizens will turn out to voice their opinions.
“I’ve had members of the faculty and staff who have called me and are afraid there will be retribution if they come forward with these complaints,” he said. “That’s not the way this system’s operated over these years.”