School committee names three superintendent finalists, schedules site visits and community forums

Member Hoffman announced the school committee's screening results and introduced three finalists for the superintendent position: Dr. Jorge S. Allen, Andrew Bot and Dr. Thomas M. Welch. Committee staff, led by Heidi Gino, reviewed the next steps: reference checks this week; identical full-day site visits the following week (tours of Collins, Bentley, the Early Childhood Center and Salem High, stakeholder focus groups and lunch with the mayor); televised community forums each evening from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m.; committee interviews likely the week of July 6; and a special meeting in July for final deliberations and a contract negotiation step ahead of an anticipated early-August start.

Gino outlined logistics for candidate days, including focus-group feedback forms tailored to students, teachers/staff, the executive team and community members. Committee members discussed forum locations (members favored holding the forums at Salt and Stall for accessibility), the need for Spanish interpretation and hybrid/online streaming, and providing childcare at evening forums to increase community participation. The committee agreed to consolidate community questions in advance so candidates would receive similar questions across forums, and to finalize interview questions at the June 22 meeting after the site visits.

The committee's schedule positions community input and stakeholder feedback as core parts of the finalist evaluation; the record shows the committee intends to use both focus-group forms and broadcast forums as part of its deliberations.