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REGION
Last month, Marlborough's superintendent of schools, Barbara McGann, stunned local parents and officials when she announced she would be resigning from her $140,000-a-year position after serving less than two years.
McGann is one of a number of superintendents leaving their posts this year in Boston's western suburbs. In her case, the departure appears to be connected to a tense relationship with the School Committee. Some of the other departing superintendents are retiring; some are moving to a similar job in a different district.
No matter the reason, a superintendent's departure typically kicks off a long, arduous, and expensive process to find a replacement. Mike Gilbert, field director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, which serves as a consultant for local districts, said the average search takes months and can cost $25,000, between advertising, background checks, and travel expenses for likely candidates.
Keefe Tech in Framingham, and the Bellingham, Berlin-Boylston Regional, Millis, Waltham, and Weston school districts are in the process of selecting a new superintendent. Marlborough has joined Framingham among the school systems with interim superintendents who might serve for another year before the districts find permanent replacements.
Every year, about 40 out of the 260 superintendent positions around the state become open, a figure that has shown an increase in recent years as many top administrators hit retirement age, Gilbert said. On average, superintendents in area communities earn $150,000 to oversee districts with 3,000 students, 300 employees, and $30 million budgets, he said.
McGann, who retired from the Navy as a rear admiral and had served as provost of the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., and an assistant superintendent in the Boston system before taking the Marlborough post in 2006, said she was resigning because she was fed up with the School Committee's vice chairwoman, Katie Robey, and others blocking her agenda to improve the city's schools.
In a September evaluation of McGann, Robey wrote, "Superintendent can become very defensive if you take a position opposite hers and challenge her on an issue. Often it's not words, but body language that conveys this negative attitude."
"I just don't think members of the School Committee embrace education reform," said McGann, who initially announced she would remain in her position through the end of the school year. But she was placed on paid administrative leave on Feb. 4, and Marlborough High School's principal, Mary Carlson, was named interim superintendent. (A few days later, McGann suffered a medical incident and was briefly hospitalized in Rhode Island.)
Robey said she did not want to comment on McGann's resignation, on the advice of the School Committee's lawyers.
Answering to school boards but serving students, placating parents as well as residents without children, and satisfying an increased amount of state educational requirements combine to make the job of superintendent as complicated as it has ever been, authorities say.
"It's one of those jobs where no matter what you do, you're going to be criticized for it," said Susanne McIvor, vice chairwoman of the Waltham School Committee.
In Waltham, officials recently decided not to renew the contract of Susan Parrella, who earns $148,522 after serving as superintendent for 10 years. McIvor said the district is looking for a leader who could communicate better with Waltham's diverse citizenry. "We need different eyes and ideas and thoughts on how we can engage the community a little bit more," she said.
Parrella said the news that she was going to be replaced came out of the blue.
In December, after hearing rumors that the School Committee was seeking another superintendent, Parrella submitted a letter to the committee requesting her contract be extended a year. The request went nowhere, she said, so she withdrew it and now is considering other job offers to start this summer.
It's a sad end to 34 years of working in Waltham's schools, she said.
"They never did my evaluation last year," Parrella said. "My evaluation was due in June and I have not been evaluated. I'm not happy, but it's part of life."
Waltham hired the Massachusetts Association of School Committees to help conduct a search for a new superintendent at a cost of $10,000, said McIvor.
Bill Erickson, who works for the New England School Development Council, a nonprofit organization that also helps with superintendent searches, said it's uncommon for districts to compete fiercely for a particular candidate. Each district is different, he said, and each candidate has different professional goals and interests.
At its Jan. 31 meeting, the Bellingham School Committee voted to establish a search committee to find a replacement for Superintendent T.C. Mattocks, who is retiring in June with two years remaining on his contract, and to meet soon with consultants to decide whether it will need help with the process.
The nine-member search panel will screen candidates and suggest finalists to the School Committee, which will make the final hiring decision.
Bellingham parents who attended the meeting last month said they would be following the search process closely, considering the superintendent's important role in the community. They expressed differing views on whether a candidate from outside the area with fresh ideas would be better than someone with experience in a Massachusetts school system.
"If the future candidate was knowledgeable of the area, they don't need to be brought up to speed with MCAS," said Michael Connor, who has a 14-year-old son at Bellingham High.
Deanna Pender, whose 12-year-old attends Bellingham Memorial Middle School, offered another perspective.
"It's not knowing the town" that matters, she said. "It's knowing what's good for a kid's education."
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
