WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee is poised to name interim Superintendent Joseph Bergeron as the full-time superintendent of the three-school, K-12 district.

 

At its July 10 meeting, the committee was to hear a report from the three-person working group updating the plan to hire a new superintendent.

 

Instead, Chair Julia Bowen, who serves on the working group, told the full committee that the subgroup had a different recommendation.

 

"We intended to come today with a [request for proposals for a search firm] for people to approve," Bowen said. "When we sat down, we said: We know we have an incredibly strong interim superintendent right now. We confirmed our incredibly strong interim superintendent will apply [for the job], but, to be clear, he will apply but he wants the best person to be hired for the district, even if that's not him.

 

"But we really questioned if it is the right decision for us to go through, certainly, an extensive search, which can bring great expense, when we have an interim superintendent who is going to apply that we, in June, all agreed is proficient or exemplary."

 

This week, Bowen said the district has seen cost estimates starting at $15,000 for a full superintendent search using a headhunter. In 2014, the last time the district went through a full search, it accepted a $20,000 gift to support that search.

 

"We know our budget next year is stretched," Bowen said at the July 10 meeting. "There are a number of things that have come in above budget as expected. We know from reading the news in other districts that there are not a lot of superintendent applicants out there that are fitting the bill.

 

"Importantly, we know that growth and change in a district comes when there is a trust in the leadership. And that trust takes a lot of time to build. As we talked about it, we said we feel like we're doing important projects, growing in important ways, because we have trust in our interim superintendent. And, if we switch superintendents, that could set us back because we'd have to build trust with somebody else."

 

School Committee member Steven Miller, who did not serve on the superintendent search working group, noted that the last time the district went through a protracted search, it signaled in its advertisement that it had a "strong" in-house candidate. Miller suggested that the inclusion of that language led to a smaller pool of applicants.

 

Miller went on to suggest that in any search the School Committee would be trying to determine who could run the district well.

 

"Better than trying to extrapolate is to have hard data," Miller said, suggesting that the district's experience with Bergeron is that data.

 

The six members of the seven-person committee attending last Thursday's meeting (Ursula Maloy was absent) agreed to authorize Bowen to negotiate with Bergeron on a contract that could be presented to the body for a vote as early as its August meeting.

 

If approved, Bergeron would become the fourth person to hold the full-time superintendent title in the district since Rose Ellis retired on Dec. 31, 2014. During that span, the district also has had two interim superintendents — Gordon Noseworthy and Robert Putnam — who were hired from the outside on time-limited contracts.

 

Bergeron would become the second person who started as an assistant superintendent, was named interim superintendent and then was elevated to the job full time.

 

The last time that happened was April 2018, when interim Superintendent Kimberley Grady was hired on a full-time basis after a search process that yielded two finalists, herself and then-Taconic High School Principal John Vosburgh.

 

Grady was hired by the Transition Committee, a body made up of elected representatives of the Mount Greylock, Lanesborough Elementary and Williamstown Elementary School Committees that governed the district during its evolution to a fully regionalized K-12 district.

 

When she was hired, one member of the Transition Committee said the body had had "a two-year interview with Ms. Grady and the opportunity to observe her over that time" — words that were echoed last week when Miller talked about "hard data" supporting Bergeron's hire.

 

Twenty-seven months after the district agreed to hire Grady, she was gone.

 

Her email to the school community announcing her departure cited health concerns that already had led to Putnam's appointment as an interim superintendent but added that, "the job of Superintendent was more than just running the schools within the District," a remark she declined to elaborate on.

 

Later, it was revealed that in an illegal closed-door meeting, the School Committee discussed the notion that Grady was, "working with school committee where majority of committee is not supportive," according to the meeting minutes.

 

Grady, like Bergeron, had received passing grades in the only formal evaluation conducted during her tenure from the same committee that later reportedly was "not supportive."

 

iBerkshires.com asked Bowen to comment on the similarities between the roads that led to Grady's hiring and appear to be heading to Bergeron's appointment.

 

She pointed out that Grady's tenure predated Bowen's service on the committee.

 

"I don't know the details of [Grady's] tenure nor the circumstances for her departure; I do know that every hiring decision is unique to the individual, the context of the times, and the individual's relationship to their supervisor (in Kim's case, the School Committee)," Bowen wrote in reply to an email seeking comment. "While I don't know the situation with Kim Grady, I do know the situation with Joe Bergeron."

 

As the School Committee chair since November, Bowen has worked closely with the interim superintendent. She also has experience as the equivalent of a superintendent for charter schools, serving as founding director of the Berkshire Arts and Technology Charter Public School for 13 years and working as a coach for more than 50 professionals in that role.

 

She said Bergeron is an "excellent" choice for the School Committee.

 

"Joe listens thoughtfully, asks excellent questions, is open to different perspectives, and is interested in deeply understanding what works well in our district and where we might be able to make improvements to benefit our students," Bowen wrote in her email. "He balances very strong analytical thinking with real compassion for everyone in our school community. I feel very comfortable with our decision to move forward with Joe."

 

Bergeron, who chaired the Transition Committee that hired Grady but was not on the successor Mount Greylock School Committee when she departed, said this week that he remembers the past and tries to learn from it while living in the present.

 

"When I was asked if I'd apply for the permanent position, my 'yes' response was grounded in two ideas: a) I'm willing to serve the district in any capacity needed; and, b) that I have complete faith in the School Committee figuring out the best course of action for the district as a whole," Bergeron said.

 

"I'd 100 percent happily work with a new superintendent, and I'd also continue to serve in the superintendent role. I'm not sure how common or uncommon that perspective is amongst people in my position, but it's genuine. I can't speak for the School Committee's path or options, but hopefully Julia provides enough there to provide a picture from the School Committee's perspective."

 

At Thursday's meeting, Carolyn Greene, a member of the superintendent search working group, told the full committee that the executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees said the district would be "crazy not to" elevate a successful interim superintendent.

 

"We called Glenn [Koocher] in, the executive director of MASC," Greene said. "He always tells people, if you have a strong internal candidate, that's the way to go."

 

Historically, the Mount Greylock district has gone a number of different ways in finding a superintendent since Ellis' departure.

 

In April 2015, it hired Douglas Dias after an open search that began in September 2014.

 

In April 2018, it hired Grady after a search in which the committee signaled it had a "strong internal candidate.

 

In July 2020, it named former Pittsfield Public Schools Superintendent Jason McCandless a mere three weeks after Grady left following a highly accelerated search.

 

Now, less than a year after deciding on a 6-0 vote it needed two years to do a full search for McCandless' replacement, the School Committee appears ready to name a superintendent without any search at all.

 

Dias, Grady and McCandless each left the district in the middle of either their first or second contract.