Superintendent Search Open to Internal and External Candidates

The next Weymouth superintendent will be an external candidate, or perhaps it will be an internal one.

Tuesday night, the Weymouth School Committee voted 6-1 to open the search for a new superintendent to candidates from inside and outside the school system.

School Committee Chairwoman Lisa Belmarsh voted against the motion, preferring to focus on internal candidates before considering external candidates.

‘I feel when we bring in a new person we’d be starting over and there is a learning curve, that’s one of my concerns,” Belmarsh said.

Mayor Robert Hedlund joined the majority of the board in calling for a broad search.

“I’d rather not see us limit our options,” he said.

The committee will now post the job description, also approved Tuesday night to SchoolSpring and to the Massachusetts Association of School Committee’s website. The posting will remain online until Feb. 7.

Candidates will then be reviewed by a search committee, who will perform interviews and make recommendation to the school committee for who should advance to a final interview with the school committee. The board will discuss who should be on the search committee at their next meeting on Jan. 21.

The next superintendent will succeed Kenneth Salim, who will leave Weymouth on June 30 to become the next superintendent of the Cambridge Public Schools. He was chosen for the job in 2011 after the unexpected death of Mary Jo Livingstone.