Portsmouth School Committee Postpones Hiring Outside Firm to Search for Next Superintendent

 The Portsmouth School Committee held their session Tuesday evening at Town Hall, where they met with the Superintendent Search Subcommittee for the first time.

Members of the subcommittee in attendance were Emily Copeland, Mary Correia, Jeff Goss, Jerry Hobbs, Al Honnen, Bob Kiely, Kathy Melvin, John Robitaille, Eric Spigel and Lori Stone. Subcommittee member Michael Daly was absent.

Due to a wealth of resources on the subcommittee, the school committee decided to not hire a private executive consulting firm to screen applications at this time.

However, a “Request for Proposals” or RFP will be drafted in case the school committee decides to hire an outside source. It was estimated that the cost to hire the consulting firm would be about $20,000. At present, no monies are budgeted for the RFP.

School Committee member Sylvia Wedge, who sat on the last selection committee in 2005 and selected the current Superintendent Dr. Susan Lusi, said she was impressed by the subcommittee and that they should search for the school district's new leader.

“This group has the expertise. Let them do the job,” she said.

Angela Volpicelli said, “I feel very comfortable they (the subcommittee) can do this job.”

Wedge spoke about her previous selection committee experience.

“We examined and narrowed the field from 14 to 3. We worked from 4 p.m. until 1 a.m.,” she said. “In our last search, we limited it to New England. The reason is people expect to be compensated to be moved across country at our expense. It happened last time."

 “Why do we need to limit it to New England? We can say up front there is no compensation for a move,” said subcommittee member Jerry Hobbs.

Hobbs also suggested a confidentiality agreement should be signed by all the members of the subcommittee in order to assure that any superintendent would feel comfortable in the selection process.

It was noted that many candidates for the position may be employed by other school departments.

Also, negotiations of a contract between the Subcommittee, the School Committee and any potential candidate could be compromised if it were to be leaked during that process.

Holding public forums will be a priority, however, according to School Committee Chairwoman Cynthia Perrotti.

“We need to have the public involved. That’s very important,” said Perrotti.

A floating deadline for final selection of a new superintendent will be around July 1.