MONTAGUE — The Gill-Montague Regional School District School Committee has voted to begin an internal search for an interim superintendent who would lead the district after July 1, as they also begin planning a renewed search for a permanent superintendent following a previous failed search over the last few months.
The School Committee began piecing together its next steps last week, with the discussion focusing on whether to begin the search for a permanent superintendent immediately, or find an interim candidate and hold off on a permanent superintendent search until the fall.
Massachusetts Association of School Committees Field Director Liz Lafond described the current superintendent candidate pool as “not even a puddle,” noting that candidates have been picked up by other districts already. She advised the committee to post the superintendent job at the start of the new school year or early in the fall.
As for an interim, Lafond said the district sits in a “good position” to conduct an internal or external search. As current interim Superintendent Tari Thomas, whose contract runs through July 1 of this year, is considered internal, she could apply for the position based on her personal interest. Thomas did not discuss her preference during last week’s meeting.
“If you post internally and don’t find someone that you’re looking for, we can certainly then go and look externally for a candidate,” Lafond said.
“I think we owe it to the staff to give them an opportunity if there is somebody in-house,” School Committee member Carol Jacobs commented.
Lafond noted that some items have already been checked off the to-do list from the first search. She mentioned that the district could use the same Superintendent Search Committee as the first search. Community feedback sessions were also held.
The decision comes after the two superintendent finalists from the first search, Brian Ricca and Mark Gosselin, were deemed non-viable. The Superintendent Search Committee had received eight applications and conducted four interviews before selecting the finalists.
However, pending contract negotiations, Ricca accepted the job as superintendent at Southern Berkshire Regional School District, and the School Committee opted not to interview Gosselin as the only finalist, per guidance from Gill-Montague’s legal counsel based on existing case law. School Committee Chair Jane Oakes explained in February that search committees are advised to present two candidates for School Committee interviews in open session, which the Superintendent Search Committee did.
“If, in effect, you only have one candidate, then it really means that your search committee has chosen your superintendent,” Oakes explained, “and that is not allowed under the law. So not their fault, not our fault, but it puts us in an odd position.”
The district ultimately deemed the first search to have failed and decided to restart the search process with the Massachusetts Association of School Committees.