Hampton School Superintendent Could Be Heading To Concord

CONCORD, NH — A former New Hampshire school superintendent of the year, who is currently leading the Hampton School District, could be heading to the city to be an interim superintendent for one year for SAU 8.

The Concord Board of Education announced Tuesday that an ad hoc committee of members had nominated Kathleen Murphy to lead the district for the 2020-2021 school year. Board member Barbara Higgins, David Parker, and Jennifer Patterson, the school board president, worked with Business Administrator Jack Dunn and a consultant the New England School Development Council to find a new interim superintendent after two finalists for the job withdrew their nominations earlier in the month. If approved by the full board, Murphy will replace Franklyn Bass, the current interim superintendent, later this year, and leave the board another year to find a permanent replacement.

"We feel ready to move forward with Kathleen Murphy," Higgins said. "Her references are superb and reflect a child centered educator who is not afraid to do what is necessary to create a safe and positive work environment. She has also given significant thought to how she can be a positive addition to our community during her tenure."

The committee worked during the past 10 days "to facilitate a rapid search for an interim superintendent" with the assistance of Art Bettencourt, a consultant, who also helped with permanent search.

Murphy has been leading schools in Hampton since 2011. In 2017, she was named New Hampshire School Superintendent of the Year by the New Hampshire School Administrators Association. Before leading the Hampton schools, where she worked to establish a new SAU for the district, Murphy was the director of the Division of Instruction (now called the Division of Learner Support) at the New Hampshire Department of Education between 2008 and 2011. She led the Newmarket School District for about six years and also worked in Nashua, Candia, and Derry, in various educational capacities.

In a statement, the board said it was Murphy's "strong background in special education and student services, has successfully overseen a middle school redesign and reconstruction project, taught elementary school for many years, and has served as a building principal at the elementary and middle school levels" that made her an attractive interim candidate.

The full board will hold a special remote meeting at 5:30 p.m. on May 28 to learn about Murphy and ask her questions. The meeting will be held using Microsoft Team with an audio conference dial in 925-391-1169 | ID# 974 341 727#. The public can also watch the meeting on Concord TV Channel 6. The public may also email questions to concordinfo@sau8.org.

Murphy announced last year that she would not be renewing her contract in Hampton, choosing not to exercise her successor clause. She received both praise and criticism from members of the community and some school staffers concerning a complaint against a Hampton Academy principal by an assistant principal and racially-motivated bullying occurrences between 2016 and 2018. A third-party investigation cleared the principal which led the assistant principal to resign; a review of the bullying incidents led to an extensive report and changes to policies and procedures to prevent future incidents in the school system.

Concord's school superintendent position became open after the termination of Terri Forsten in September 2019 in the wake of the Howie "Primo" Leung teacher-student case and subsequent investigation.

The board agreed to a settlement with the district to avoid arbitration and lawsuits on Nov. 1, 2019, after the Concord Board of Education spent two days eyeing a 100-plus page investigation into how and why Leung, a Concord High School special education teacher, was kept on as a teacher for many months after being accused of inappropriate contact with a student.

Months after the inappropriate conduct allegation, while Leung was still teaching, he was arrested and accused of raping another girl at a summer school program in Massachusetts. Forsten's brought the case to the attention of the New Hampshire Department of Education and that led to an expanded investigation of Leung by Concord police and his eventual arrest in Newton, Massachusetts, about a year ago.

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