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Community member urges Riverhead board to begin public superintendent search, raises notice concerns
Summary
A Riverhead community organizer asked the board to launch a public superintendent search with stakeholder input and criticized the district’s notice process for a July special meeting that reinstated SROs.
At the Sept. 10 meeting Kimberly Wilder, coordinator of Riverhead RAZI, urged the Riverhead Central School District Board of Education to begin a public search for a permanent superintendent and to solicit input from students, parents, faculty and community organizations.
Wilder told the board the district’s leaders should have started the search earlier and that the community deserves a say in selection criteria and candidate review. "The time is overdue to start the search for a new superintendent of schools at Riverhead Central School District," she said, asking the board to engage PTOs and other community groups in the process.
Wilder also reiterated an objection to actions taken at a July 22, 2024 special meeting, saying that some families — notably private and parochial households — were not properly notified because of an IT failure and that a controversial decision to reinstate SROs should have had broader notice and engagement. "This decision about SROs should not have been placed on a rushed special meeting over the summer," she said, requesting that the board reconsider the action at a regularly noticed meeting.
What happens next: Wilder asked the board to begin a community-inclusive superintendent search and to reconsider prior decisions taken at the special meeting if stakeholders were not adequately notified; the board took no public roll-call reversal on those prior decisions during this meeting.
