BARRE — The most pressing one recently ended, another was over before it began, and several other administrative searches in the Barre Unified Union School District are nearing the finish line, including two that have all but crossed it.
There are higher profile hires on the horizon, but the search for newly minted Superintendent Chris Hennessey’s replacement as co-principal at Barre City Elementary and Middle School appears to be all but over, and the school board is a vote away from hiring a new director of early childhood education.
The latter decision would have been made late last week if the paperwork involving Hennessey’s plans to hire Elizabeth Brown had been included in materials submitted to the board in advance of its Thursday night meeting. Instead, the board was briefed on Brown, who is director of the Head Start program in Rutland, and is expected to replace Lauren May as director of early childhood education in Barre on July 1.
May announced her plans to resign at the end of the school year in November, but Hennessey said he expects she will remain in the district in a different capacity next year and Brown will take over her administrative duties.
The search for Hennessey’s replacement as co-principal at Barre City Elementary and Middle School has also been narrowed to one — the school’s former assistant principal, Pierre Laflamme.
Laflamme was promoted to interim principal after Hennessey was promoted to interim superintendent following former superintendent David Wells’ abrupt resignation last year.
After the board stripped “interim” from Hennessey’s new role following a search that ended in January, his old job was posted on Jan. 20. Board members were told 10 candidates applied by the Feb. 3 deadline, four were considered “viable” and two withdrew before being interviewed by a 12-member search committee.
Hennessey said the committee has recommended Laflamme, who he worked with at Barre’s pre-K-8 school before taking over as interim superintendent.
Hennessey said he planned to interview Laflamme this week as a part of a process that may include a board interview.
Hennessey told board members, who interviewed Laflamme for the interim principal’s position a few months ago, they could decide whether they wanted to talk to him again before considering the hire later this month.
“He’s put a lot of work into this,” Hennessey said of Laflamme.
Unless something goes sideways, Laflamme will remain on as middle school principal at Barre City Elementary and Middle School, while Spaulding High School Principal Brenda Waterhouse takes over the role of elementary school principal now held by Hayden Coon.
Coon recently announced he will be leaving the district at the end of the school year to accept a principal’s position in neighboring New Hampshire. There was no search for Coon’s successor after Waterhouse volunteered to make a switch that she and Hennessey agree is in the best interest of the district as a whole even if it will require her leaving Spaulding.
The search for Spaulding’s next principal began when the position was posted on Feb. 10. The deadline for applicants is today and there were eight candidates in the mix heading into the weekend. A 13-member committee, which includes a mix of administrators, faculty, staff, parents and students, has been assembled and will meet for the first time on Wednesday.
The committee is expected to narrow the list of candidates before scheduling interviews on March 14, and recommending one or more of them to Hennessey for his consideration. That would put Hennessey in the position to conduct interviews of his own in time to recommend one, or more, finalist to the board for its consideration on March 24.
With several searches nearing decisions, and at least some likely to involve an as yet unknown number of board-level interviews, the possibility of scheduling a special meeting exclusively for that purpose before March 24 has been floated and likely will be decided during the board’s March 10 organizational meeting.
Brown’s hiring is expected to be approved by the board at that meeting and Laflamme’s technically could be as well. However, March 24 is considered the more likely date — especially if the board wants to conduct its own interview.
Waiting until March 24 to conduct interviews could bog down the agenda that night or slow the hiring process.
The goal is to obtain board approval to hire three new administrators on March 24. One of them is presumably Laflamme, another would be Waterhouse’s replacement as principal of Spaulding High School, and a third would be the curriculum director’s position that has been vacant since Mary Ellen Simmons left the district late last year.
Rather than rush to find a mid-year replacement for Simmons, Hennessey opted to rely on existing staff to perform those duties with an eye to bringing a new curriculum director on board July 1. The position was posted Jan. 3 and attracted 13 applicants before the Feb. 14 deadline. One subsequently withdrew and a 12-member search committee has narrowed the field to three finalists it will interview on Thursday. The committee will recommend one or more of the finalists to Hennessey, who will conduct his own interviews before making a recommendation to the board.
Depending on how many finalists Hennessey recommends to the board, it could be interviewing candidates for at least two, and possibly three positions, with the potential of multiple finalists for two of the positions.
Two other administrative searches are on a slightly slower track. Both involve assistant principal’s positions and one presumes Laflamme will be promoted and won’t return to his former role as assistant principal. The position, which has been filled for the last several months by Olivia Kane, recently was posted and the deadline for applicants is March 7. Heading into the weekend, six people had applied, and four of them also were in the running for one of two assistant principal’s positions at Spaulding High School.
That currently vacant position was posted on Jan. 31 and the deadline for applicants was Monday. As of the end of last week, 18 people had applied and three had withdrawn after accepting jobs elsewhere.
Separate search committees will evaluate and interview candidates for both of those positions and make recommendations to Hennessey by the end of the month.
david.delcore @timesargus.com
