Williamstown Elementary School Committee Chairman Steps Down
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — A turbulent year in the governance of Williamstown Elementary School took another turn on Wednesday evening when Dan Caplinger stepped down as chairman of the School Committee.
Caplinger called a special 4 p.m. meeting of the body to announce his decision and decide on a new leader going forward.
The four members present from the five-person panel elected Joe Bergeron to replace Caplinger and decided that Vice Chairman John Skavlem should remain in that role. Skavlem was out of town on business and unable to attend the meeting.
"I've had to make a very difficult personal decision," Caplinger announced at a meeting that drew three members of the public, several staff and the vice chairwoman of the Mount Greylock Regional School Committee.
"The amount of stress that I have felt as chair has started to have an impact on my professional life, on my personal life, and it is at a level where I felt I couldn't comfortably be everywhere I needed to be. Fulfilling the functions of this job is important, and when the stress started to have an impact on those other parts of my life … it is a difficult decision."
Bergeron was elected to the School Committee in May as one of several candidates who ran on criticism of the district's decision to cut a full-day special education preschool classroom. Bergeron received the most votes in a five-person race for two seats on the committee; Caplinger, a sitting chairman standing for re-election, finished second.
One-year appointments, like chairman, are voted at the committee's first meeting after the May town election.
"I intend to stay on the WES Committee," Caplinger said. "I'm only backing away from my position as chair."
Bergeron volunteered to assume the chairman position after first hearing that none of the more senior members of the committee were interested.
"I have the time commitment to give and some of the background, but I'm the least experienced one here," Bergeron said. "Although I'm willing, I'd do it with that reservation. My job is more flexible.
"I don't want to say, 'Yes, absolutely,' but I don't want to say, 'No,' because I know other people's time commitments are different than mine.
"I know we all need to work together no matter what happens."
Cathy Keating and Joe Johnson both said they were not interested in serving as chair. Caplinger said he had talked to Skavlem and learned that he also was not interested.
"One reason he has not been chair in the past has been his professional commitments and his personal commitments," Caplinger said of Skavlem. "He does not believe he is in a position to take the chairman's role by himself.
"One thing he asked is if there is a way to do a co-chair role. I think a lot of non-profits share the responsibility of the leadership in a co-chair arrangement. Obviously, in the School Committee context, things get more complicated."
For example, there are two roles served by the WES Committee chair in the Tri-District arrangement through which the district shares a central administration with Mount Greylock Regional School and Lanesborough Elementary School.
Caplinger said the district's counsel did not dismiss out of hand the idea of co-chairs, but the attorney said he would have to look into the legality of such an arrangement.
The committee members at Wednesday's meeting decided to move forward with as ingle chairman. But it also decided to keep Skavlem as the vice chairman, and Caplinger stressed that Bergeron should look to Skavlem, the body's longest tenured member, as a resource.
"If those two individuals [chair and vice chair] can work together in a way that is cooperative and interactive, then it allows for the possibility of the reality looking a lot like what John is suggesting [co-chairs] while still respecting the formal titles everyone is familiar with and avoiding the ambiguity in our relationship with the other schools," Caplinger said.
"I would like to honor John's service as he approaches the last six months of his second term by keeping him in that role. He is a paragon in the community, well respected, forthright, assertive when necessary, diplomatic when necessary. I want to make those characteristics fully available to the [next] chair because the chair will need them and benefit from them."
All three members at Wednesday's meeting thanked Caplinger for his service as chairman.
"All the work you've done is going to make the big shoes someone will fill even bigger," Bergeron said prior to the discussion of who would take on the role. "I'm very hopeful we're not losing you any more than we absolutely must."
In addition to taking over as School Committee chairman, Bergeron succeeds Caplinger in two ex officio roles of that chair: membership on the Superintendency Union 71 Committee and the Administrative Review Subcommittee.
Both those Tri-District bodies currently are involved in a search for an interim superintendent to replace Douglas Dias, who abruptly announced his departure one month to the day before Wednesday's meeting.
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