WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Lanesborough-Williamstown Tri-District is moving ahead with a plan that officials hope will bring an interim superintendent to the district as early as Jan. 1.

 

On Wednesday evening, the Mount Greylock Regional School Committee held a joint meeting with its colleagues from Superintendency Union 71, the union of Lanesborough and Williamstown's elementary school districts, to consider a succession plan proposed by the two groups' Administrative Review Subcommittee.

 

The subcommittee proposed that the hiring committees authorize it to screen candidates and name a pool of up to three finalists who would be interviewed by the full Mount Greylock and SU71 panels. It is a similar process to the one used by the Tri-District when it hired its last interim superintendent, Gordon Noseworthy, in December 2014.

 

The subcommittee further recommended that the Tri-District look for an interim superintendent for a period of 18 months — allowing time for a thorough search process and the planned completion of the new Mount Greylock Regional School, which is set to open in spring 2018.

 

Mount Greylock shares its central office administration with its two "feeder" elementary schools, although each of the three remains a distinct district with its own elected school committee. Three members of the Williamstown School Committee and all three members of the Lanesborough School Committee serve on the SU71 Committee; together, SU71 and Mount Greylock will hire the next superintendent.

 

Currently, the Tri-District's top administrator, Assistant Superintendent Kim Grady, is serving as  acting superintendent.

 

The four-person subcommittee plans to screen candidates from a pool made up of recommendations of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, which maintains a list of qualified potential interim administrators — usually retired superintendents, as Noseworthy was. School committee members have indicated that there may be additional candidates known to the district apart from that list.

 

The Mount Greylock and SU71 panels had just a couple of questions for the subcommittee members.

 

Mount Greylock School Committee member Wendy Penner asked if the screening committee planned to get input from the three principals, who co-signed a letter outlining a series of complaints against the Tri-District's most recent superintendent.

 

LES Committee Chairwoman Regina DiLego, a member of the ARS, said that group already had consulted with the principals.

 

Mount Greylock's Steven Miller said the hiring process has to be transparent and open to the public.

 

While the initial screening process by ARS would be done in executive session, the final interview and vote to name the interim superintendent would be done in public session, a fact that pleased Miller.

 

Immediately after the SU71/Mount Greylock joint meeting — which included an executive session to discuss a contract matter with non-union personnel — the ARS members met and set a meeting for Friday morning to begin screening applicants.