Thursday, July 16, 2009

Chief Academic Officer

...will, it appears, be hired by the School Committee, according to MA General Laws (this came up in the retreat earlier, in the question of who got what report when and if they should have). They have ultimate authority.
Ms. Mullaney has opened the conversation for what the School Committee would like to do about this. The position has been posted, applications are coming in, Boone is waiting to see what the School Committee would like to do.
Lukes is back to who got what...wanting to know the legality of a School Committee member getting an opinion before the Superintendent got it. She wants a legal opinion on that. She also wants to know if there's a legal obligation the School Committee has.
Monfredo says, let's have her suggest someone for and vote 'em up or down.
Lukes says she sat in on interviews. She thinks there's a process by law.
Mullaney says she thinks it's a little different from what Lukes is referring to (which was the special ed director). She thinks we ought to excercise that little bit of authority state law allows the School Committee.
Lukes wants a policy for how School Committee hires the people they hire. Mr. Foley says he'd like Boone to get going on hiring CAO, and makes a motion to that end.
O'Connell says that Ed Reform only changed the hiring process for some positions in redrafting the lines, thus the difference among positions. He suggests that if a meeting is needed, the Mayor has the authority to convene such a meeting and should do so.

2 comments:

Jim Gonyea said...

I'm not familiar with the laws for a city. I do know that the School Committee only hires the Superintendant. They have to appoint the SpEd Director and the Business Manager, but don't actually have to be included in the hiring process. Education "Reform" pretty much hamstrung the school committee in an effort to move control of local education to the state level. The Governor is about to fire the next shot in that particular war with the expansion of charter schools at the expense of general public education.

Tracy Novick said...

Jim, the School Committee checked with the state and they were in charge of hiring the special ed director; it's on the list of five people they hire.
And Governor agreed in order to get federal funds...while his own position on charters has been shaky, having the DoE at the federal level refuse stimulus for those who had a charter cap pretty much sent him right off to uncapping.