Blackstone-Millville school committee opens expedited superintendent search, authorizes MASC to run process

The Blackstone-Millville school committee voted to open an expedited search for a new superintendent and authorized the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC) to conduct the search, with any incurred costs capped at $1,000.

Jane Reio, who led the recommendation, said the committee needed “to vote in open meeting … to officially open the search” and proposed using the school committee as the search committee to accelerate the process. A motion to use the school committee for an expedited search was made, seconded and approved by voice vote; the chair announced the outcome as five in favor and one opposed.

The committee also approved a motion to authorize MASC to manage the search. Tracy Novik of the search team explained the practical steps: applications will be collected electronically and MASC can perform a “paper screening” of candidates with one or two school committee members before forwarding finalists to the full committee for public interviews.

Novik told members that the paper-screening approach allows applicants to submit confidentially and yields a stronger candidate pool, while making all applications public at the screening stage would likely reduce the number of qualified applicants. “Not if the applications come in confidentially because you're using an exception to the open meeting law in order to receive the applications and do a preliminary screening,” Novik said, explaining the tradeoff between confidentiality and public review.

The committee approved the position announcement to be posted with an application deadline of May 29. Committee members agreed to post the announcement promptly (the posting was planned for tonight or the following morning) and to finalize formatting changes offline. The committee then moved to establish an initial paper-screening committee to review applications; Jane Reio made the motion and Carrie seconded it. That motion passed unanimously.

Under the process described, the screening group (kept smaller than a quorum — recommended up to three members) will review electronic PDFs of applications the week of June 1 and recommend at least three finalists to be contacted about moving forward to public interviews. Novik recommended providing finalists with sufficient lead time for scheduling; the committee discussed aiming for interview windows the week of June 8 so finalists and committee members could be available before the school year ends.

Votes and formal motions taken at the meeting included: approval to open an expedited search using the school committee (voice vote, tally announced as five to one); authorization for MASC to conduct the search with a not-to-exceed expense cap of $1,000 (voice vote, tally announced as five to one); approval of the job posting with a May 29 application deadline (unanimous); and establishment of a paper-screening committee to shortlist applicants (unanimous).

Next procedural steps: the committee will post the position, MASC will collect applications through May 29, the paper-screening committee will meet the week of June 1 to recommend finalists, and the full school committee will hold public interviews and make finalist announcements in a public meeting. Committee members were asked to be prepared to set interview dates at the next school committee meeting on the 21st.

The meeting concluded after confirming follow-up assignment and contact information for organizers and MASC.