Williamstown School Committee members Chris Jones and Dan Caplinger join Lanesborough School Committee Chairwoman Regina Dilego and Mount Greylock Regional School Committee member Colleen Taylor, right, at Thursday's meeting.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — A divided Mount Greylock Regional School Committee on Thursday decided to advertise its open superintendent job with a starting salary between $145,000 and $160,000 per year.

 

The committee planned a joint meeting with Superintendency Union 71 to discuss the superintendent search, but SU71 failed to achieve a quorum of the six-person committee.

 

SU71, which consists of Williamstown and Lanesborough elementary schools, has a shared services agreement with Mount Greylock to pay for the schools' superintendent and central administration. Last month, Superintendent Rose Ellis, who is in the last year of her contract, announced her plan to retire effective Dec. 31.

 

The Tri-District, as the SU-71/Mount Greylock arrangement is known, is being advised by the Massachusetts Association of School Committees on how to conduct a search for Ellis' replacement.

 

Based on that advice, the Tri-District's Administrative Review Subcommittee recommended the $145,000-$160,000 salary range for the advertisements that will be posted this month.

 

Mount Greylock committee member Robert Ericson raised strong objections to that figure, prompting a sharp exchange with the committee's chairman and an eventual nay vote by Ericson.

 

Ericson maintained that the recommended amount was more in line with superintendent salaries in the eastern part of the commonwealth, where the cost of living is higher, and was out of line with salaries for superintendents in Berkshire County.

 

"We don't need God to come in here and teach our kids," Ericson said. "It doesn't need to be the best person in the United States to come teach rural Mount Greylock kids.

 

"After benefits, you're talking about $180,000 to $200,000. Do any of you folks pay taxes in this county? Do you realize how expensive this is to be the smallest school in Northern Berkshire and we're going to be hiring the most expensive stinking superintendent in Northern Berkshire, if not the whole county?"

 

Mount Greylock Chairwoman Carolyn Greene interrupted Ericson at that point.

 

"Bob, we understand your point," she said. "Let's keep this simple and calm."

 

"I'm keeping it simple and calm," Ericson said. "You guys don't pay taxes in Lanesborough, obviously."

 

"We have a number of Lanesborough residents here," Greene said. "You've said your piece, and I think we need to move on."

 

Greene then called for a vote on the salary range, which passed 4-1 with Lanesborough residents Chris Dodig and Sheila Hebert joining Greene and Colleen Taylor, who live in Williamstown. 

 

"While I see your points, Bob, I want to get the best person, and I'm willing to pay a little more," Dodig said before the vote.

 

SU71 plans to take up the salary question on Wednesday at a joint meeting with the Williamstown School Committee, SU71 Chairwoman Regina Dilego said.

 

Dilego, who also chairs the Lanesborough School Committee, attended Thursday's planned joint Mount Greylock-SU71 meeting, but only three members of the SU71 committee attended: Dilego and Williamstown's Chairwoman Valerie Hall and Vice Chairman Dan Caplinger.

 

SU71 also includes both other members of the Lanesborough Committee, Robert Barton and James Moriarity, neither of whom attended. Moriarity told Dilego that Thursday evenings were impossible for him to attend committee meetings, she said; Barton has repeatedly called for Lanesborough to look at options to break away from SU71.

 

With three members of the five-person Williamstown Committee in attendance (Chris Jones in addition to Hall and Caplinger), that panel held a joint meeting with Mount Greylock. The elementary committee, while it had no official business to conduct, gave advisory votes concurring with several of the steps Mount Greylock plans for the superintendent search; it took no action on the salary question.

 

Other decisions reached by the Mount Greylock committee on Thursday included its intention to search for a permanent superintendent rather than find an interim to fill out the rest of this academic year, a timetable for this fall's search process and an authorization to spend up to $7,000 to advertise the superintendent position.

 

Ericson attempted to amend the motion to find a permanent superintendent to state that in addition to finding a superintendent, the Mount Greylock will pursue cost-sharing arrangements with other districts.

 

While other members of the committee agreed that such alliances should be pursued, Ericson's amendment failed on a 4-1 vote after Dodig said he thought invitations to other districts would take more time than the superintendent search and Greene argued it would be confusing to link the two initiatives.

 

Ericson joined in a 5-0 vote on the unamended motion to seek a permanent superintendent.

 

If the right candidate for the permanent position is not available to begin at the Tri-District office on Jan. 1, district counsel Fred Dupere advised the committees on Thursday that they could readily find an interim appointee in December to take the post for six months.

 

Mount Greylock and SU71 have decided not to use the services of a "head hunter" to find their next superintendent. Officials are confident in accepting the guidance of the Boston-based MASC, a professional association funded by dues paid by school committees throughout the commonwealth.

 

MASC Executive Director Glenn Koocher will review and rank applications for the superintendent post before passing them on to the yet unnamed search committee for preliminary review. The search committee will recommend an unspecified number of finalist for interviews by the full Mount Greylock and SU71 committees, who hope to vote on a candidate by Dec. 1, according to the schedule outlined on Thursday.

 

Other dates in the process as described on Thursday include:

 

Sept. 15: Position to be posted on the Education Week website.

Sept. 29: MASC training for Search Committee members.

Oct. 10: Deadline for receiving applications.

Oct. 20-31: Interviews for semi-finalists.

Nov. 3-7: Finalists selected.

Week of Nov. 10: Search Committee site visits.

Nov. 18: Finalist interviews.

Dec. 1: MGRSC and U71 vote.

Dec. 1-15: Final background and employment checks of candidate selected.

Dec. 15: Announcement of new superintendent.

Jan. 1, 2015: Preferred start date.

July 1, 2015: Latest possible start date.