MEMBER SIGN IN
Not a member? Become one today!
         iBerkshires     Berkshire Chamber     Berkshire Community College     City of Pittsfield    
Search
Williamstown-Lanesborough Superintendent Finalists Named
By Stephen Dravis, iBerkshires Staff
07:36PM / Thursday, March 19, 2015
Print | Email  

A joint meeting of the Mount Greylock Regional and Superintendency Union 71 school committee selected two finalists to interview Monday for the superintendent's position.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Mount Greylock Regional School Committee and Superintendency Union 71 on Thursday evening announced the two finalists for the Tri-District superintendent position.

Woodstock, Conn., Public Schools Superintendent Francis Baran and Medway High School Principal Douglas Dias were chosen from 16 qualified applicants. Media reports from the eastern end of the state on Thursday night said Dias had resigned his position at Medway after being named a finalist at Mount Greylock and West Springfield.

The pair will be in town on Monday, March 23, visiting Mount Greylock and both SU71 elementary schools — Williamstown Elementary and Lanesborough Elementary. The final interview with members of the school committees will be on Monday evening starting at 5 at Mount Greylock.

It is possible but unlikely that the committees will choose to select a candidate on Monday night. A more likely scenario would see the committee members call references for each candidate and perhaps make site visits to their current school districts before making a final decision.

That was the advice of Arthur Bettencourt, the executive director of the New England School Development Council, which is consulting with the school committees on the search process.

SU71, a partnership of Williamstown and Lanesborough Elementaries, and Mount Greylock share central administration under the Tri-District arrangement. Currently, the three districts are led by interim Superintendent Gordon Noseworthy, who was hired in the fall when the Tri-District's first superintendent, Rose Ellis, announced she would retire early and not fill out the final year of a contract that would have expired at the end of the school year.

The Tri-District already went through one failed search for a permanent replacement, which led to hiring of the interim superintendent to fill out the school year. On Thursday, school committee members already were debating what would happen if either of the two finalists don't pan out — not so much because they are unacceptable to the committees but because the finalist they choose may not choose the Tri-District.

"Are we comfortable having just two candidates knowing we might lose both of them?" asked Dan Caplinger, a member of the Williamstown School Committee who serves on the SU71 joint committee.

"We could request the search committee come back with more names. That's our prerogative. … I'm not saying we should. I'm just throwing it out there."

Bettencourt told the school committee members on Thursday that Baran and Dias are finalists for positions in other districts. But he stressed that is normal.

"The circumstances are not that unusual at all in today's market," Bettencourt said. "To have a district looking at a candidate who isn't being looked at by other districts would be unusual in the current market."

In answer to a question from Mount Greylock School Committee member Richard Cohen, Bettencourt said that if the current search is not successful for whatever reason, NESDEC will help conduct another search without charging an additional consultant fee. A donor with ties to Williams College is funding the current search.

Baran was one of three candidates interviewed on Wednesday for the superintendent position in Dartmouth, according to SouthCoastToday, the website of the New Bedford Times.

On Thursday night, Wicked Local Holliston reported that Dias resigned after being named last week as a superintendent finalist at West Springfield and again at the Tri-District on Thursday:

"Believing that he will start next school year as a superintendent somewhere, Dias said he gave his resignation several weeks ago to give the district enough time to find his replacement," the website reported.

"'I believe I'm ready,' he said, adding that Medway High is an 'outstanding school with a dedicated and caring staff. I have been blessed with the opportunity to be principal during the past three years.' "

The website further reported that West Springfield district officials were scheduled to visit Medway on Thursday.

Ultimately, the committees decided not to make another request of the 12-person search committee, composed of parents, teachers and school committee members from all three schools in the Tri-District.

Each of the finalists chosen by the search committee has ties to Massachusetts.

Baran, who serves a district in the northeast corner of Connecticut, took his master's degree at Westfield State and holds a doctorate from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. From 1972 to 1984, he was a science teacher and baseball and softball coach at Classical High School in Springfield, which closed in 1986.

In Woodstock, he oversees a Pre-K through Grade 8 district with an enrollment of about 900 according to the most recent Connecticut Department of Education statistics. The Woodstock district had a fiscal 2015 budget of about $16.5 million. The projected FY16 for the Pre-K through 12 Tri-District totals about $19.6 million ($2.6 million for Lanesborough, $6.5 million for Williamstown and $10.5 for Mount Greylock).

Woodstock was Baran's first superintendent post. He joined the district in 2002.

At Medway in Norfolk County, Dias has overseen a school with 795 students in Grades 9 through 12, according to the latest statistics on the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association website. Mount Greylock has 410 students in Grades 9-12 according to the same MIAA list.

All of Dias' teaching and administrative experience has been at either the high school or college level, according to the resume distributed at Thursday's meeting.

Dias has been at Medway since 2012. Earlier this year, he was a finalist for a superintendent position in the Asburnham-Westminster School District, according to Wicked Local Holliston.

Much of Thursday's meeting dealt with the logistics of Monday's visits by the candidates, who will visit each of the three schools in the Tri-District (without crossing paths) starting at 8:30 a.m. One candidate will be interviewed at Mount Greylock at 5 p.m. for 90 minutes. The other will be interviewed at the junior-senior high school starting at 7.

Comments
More Featured Stories
Pittsfield.com is owned and operated by: Boxcar Media 106 Main Sreet, P.O. Box 1787 North Adams, MA 01247 -- T. 413-663-3384
© 2008 Boxcar Media LLC - All rights reserved