Students, families and other members of the Springfield community are invited to take part in a special “community forum” as the school district’s search for a superintendent nears its final stages.
The forum will be held at the Van Sickle Academy/Springfield Renaissance School’s auditorium at 5:15 p.m. and will put members of the public in direct contact with one of the finalists unveiled earlier in May.
Those candidates include Rene Sanchez, superintendent of the Champlain Valley School District in Vermont, Lead Chief Schools Officer for Springfield Public Schools Kimberly Wells, and Dr. Sonia Dinnall, the Chief of Family and Community Engagement for the Springfield Empowerment Zone Partnership.
Exact protocols will be announced at the meeting, but the school district says individuals will be able to ask questions and hear directly from the candidates.
Wednesday will also be the best chance for the public to share input. Come Thursday, the school committee is expected to interview the candidates in the same space and time, according to Mayor Domenic Sarno.
“We're going to have another community meeting that will be done on the 29th of May at Van Sickle/Renaissance auditorium, which we did many years ago when we selected Superintendent [Daniel] Warwick, and have time frames where questions can be asked,” Sarno told WAMC. “Very-structured- Glenn Koocher of the Mass. Association of Schools Committees will moderate that. Then the following evening on the 30th, we'll have an official school committee meeting right back at Van Sickle/Renaissance there - school committee members will ask some of our questions, and then we will vote on our next superintendent, he or she, moving forward.
For the past five months, the Springfield School Committee that Sarno chairs has been overseeing the search to replace Warwick, who will retire at the end of the school year.
The search has been rocky, including walkouts and boycotts by committee members over certain procedures, including how applications were screened.
But over the past few weeks, the climate appeared to cool considerably. It was evident during a committee meeting of the whole last week, where nearly all members sat to discuss protocols for the end of the search.
That included establishing how, in alphabetical order, candidates will get about an hour each to field questions during the community forum.
Moderating the forum will be the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, Glenn Koocher.
As the process came together, committee member Denise Hurst briefly reiterated how it felt as though the current leg of the search was going by quickly – a concern she and others had shared since the beginning, when officials laid out plans to have Warwick replaced by the summertime.
“It does feel rushed, and I will continue to say that,” she said during the meeting.
During the meeting on Monday, May 20, the committee members were nailing down how to vet the candidates and contact their references - a process that would take up much of the following week.
Hurst also advocated for ensuring bilingual services were available for Wednesday, in addition to other accommodations for the public, which the body appeared to oblige.
