Superintendent Community Conversation Is Tonight

Redding and Easton residents wishing to have a say in who will be the next superintendent for the should head to tonight.

The three Boards of Education will be holding a community conversation, the topic of which is the superintendent search currently underway. The conversation will begin at 7 p.m.

“The session is intended to be a [question and answer] dialogue with the people,” Leon Karvelis, chair of the superintendent search steering committee, told Patch. “It is intended to answer any questions and clear up any possible misconceptions concerning what we are doing and the approaches we are taking.”

Karvelis said the public “should attend if they have anything on their mind relative to the search and if they wish to offer support, advice, suggestions, etc.”

“After all, the job of superintendent is that of an important community leader and CEO of a system with over 3,300 students, over 500 employees and budgets of about $60 million in the aggregate,” he said. “This is a crucial job which affects all of our taxpayers and children and the people of both towns should care a lot about the qualifications, experience and temperament of the person selected.”

Redding and Easton residents, Karvelis said, are “justifiably proud of their schools and they have supported them through their votes on budget referendums and their election of representatives to each of the three boards.”

“It is our goal to be as transparent with them about our search efforts as possible,” Karvelis said.

The three districts are not have community focus group sessions, Karvelis said, because “the focus group feedback that was generated in the last search is still fairly fresh and pertinent.”

The districts’ current superintendent, Michael Cicchetti, was hired in early 2010 and announced his retirement in November of last year, effective at the end of the current school year.

Karvelis told Patch about the steps in the process of hiring a new superintendent following the community conversation.

“The next steps in the process will be the reviewing of resumes from qualified candidates, series of interviews of eligible candidates with the three school boards, representatives of the school administrations and with respective town leaders,” Karvelis said. “Then references will be checked and site visits with the applicant(s) current districts as well as candidate site visits in Region 9 will be conducted, and when the list of candidates is winnowed down to one person, negotiations of compensation and benefits packages and other contractual details will be worked out.”

But ultimately, the 21 members of the tri-board will be responsible for hiring the superintendent, he said.

“Our initial goal is to have selected the finalists in April and conduct a thorough background review, follow-up meetings and contract negotiations in the period between April and June and have the new superintendent ready to start by July 1, since Dr. Cicchetti’s last day is June 30,” he said. “This schedule accommodates both Region 9 and the candidate’s responsibilities to their current district. If no suitable candidate is found and hired, the tri-board will adopt an interim plan and hire a caretaker superintendent for a temporary period until a suitable candidate is selected.”