By JOSHUA SOLOMON
Recorder Staff
GREENFIELD — When the Massachusetts Virtual Academy at Greenfield’s school board approached Judith Houle last week about a full-time position, she was caught off guard.
The academy’s interim executive director — for a school that provides public education virtually for kids across the state — did not realize the board of trustees was going to ask her to become the full-time executive director for the 2017-18 school year.
“I didn’t put my name in the pool in the original search,” Houle, no longer the interim director, said.
“I just felt that the board needed to have a fully open process, where they felt they can be untethered by that,” Houle added.
Now Houle will finish out the school year and operate under a one-year contract with an extension clause in the 2017-18 school year at the academy, which is based in Greenfield. Many of the students, from across the state, are typically those who fare better with a virtual setting than a classic, brick and mortar educational setting — like kids with anxiety or those pursuing athletic or artistic careers semi-professionally.
The trustees tagged Houle as its interim executive director in Nov. 2016, while it searched for someone to fill the position full time. At the time the chair of the board, Daryl Essensa, said they were “thrilled to have someone with Dr. Houle’s background, experience, and expertise available to us during this time of transition.”
Nearly five months later, the board came to a unanimous decision to appoint Houle full time to the helm.
“We conducted a regional search — throughout New England and beyond — for our next executive director and as we went through the process, it became more and more clear to us that the person we wanted was right in front of us the whole time,” Essensa said in a statement.
Houle was the superintendent of schools for Belchertown from 2009 to 2014. She then acted as interim superintendent of schools for Granby Public Schools, before making the move to Greenfield to the state’s first Commonwealth Virtual Academy.
Houle graduated from Barrington College, picked up her master’s degree in educational administration from Westfield State University and earned her doctoral degree in education from UMass.
With more than 40 years in educational experience, Houle looks forward as executive director to helping to implement some of the research she was working on over the course of this school year.
“Now I think we can really make good use of the data and move this school forward,” Houle said.
The school is looking at a new strategic plan and is gathering data about the academic supports they use for kids, Houle said.
The decision to stay on at the Virtual Academy was easy in some respects.
“I actually live in the Valley so that was the easy part,” Houle said.
But the executive director needed to consult with her family first.
“With any life decision you always have to make sure your spouse is on board,” Houle said.