FAQ on superintendents in Massachusetts: round two

 It's probably "round too many to count" but it's round two recently. 

UPDATE: MassLive notes that Worcester could have a next superintendent by the end of the day.

Do superintendents have to already have their superintendent’s licensure to be appointed superintendent?

No. They should be eligible for licensure, but they don’t have to already have the license. Depending on what licensure they already have, it can be a fairly straightforward process to get the superintendent’s license, particularly if they already have an administrator level license (passing the MTEL* if they haven’t; attesting the experience already completed, or completing the experience).

Massachusetts educator licensure, by the way, is a publicly accessible system found online here. 

So there is an experience requirement for a superintendent’s license?

Yes. Many of us are familiar with student teaching, which is the equivalent experience for teaching. For an administrative license, the state requires either (this is straight from DESE):

• equivalent or internship of 300 hours in the role of Superintendent/Assistant Superintendent

  
  

  
  

  
  

   -or-

  
  

  
  

  
  

   
• Completion of three full years of employment under a valid Massachusetts administrator license

  
  

You may note that this doesn’t require teaching experience. The reflexive requirement of teaching experience is how we have ended up with these former Teach for America “I did my two years in the Bronx” types being put forward for administrative posts when they have no significant experience in public education nor any particular value for or of it. Beware of check box requirements like these. 

Can the Committee wait to appoint a superintendent?

Ideally, no, as transition time is very much a best practice (as I’ve already noted, that is why you see searches wrapping up now). Additionally, if past practice holds, the School Committee will be getting the FY26 budget next week, and one would hope that the Committee would ensure they’re ready to move on to that.

Regardless, there must be a superintendent in place July 1.

I will update if I see more to answer.

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*The MTEL is the test (or set of tests, really) that are taking by all those pursuing any educator licensure in Massachusetts; it has been required since 1998. Any of us with licenses earned before 1998 did not take the MTEL to get them; if we pursue additional licenses, we then have to take the MTEL as part of it.
There isn't a different test for a superintendent; it is the Communication MTEL, which is required of all educators, that those pursuing any new administrator license must take.

FAQ on superintendents in Massachusetts

 I will let what I said stand on its own regarding Dr. Monárrez, but I'm seeing some questions come up that are pretty straightforward "how does the superintendency in Massachusetts and elsewhere work?" questions, so let's look at those. As always, I post this in my personal capacity.
I'll add to this if I see more. 

Is three years "short" for a superintendency?

Not really. This is actually a somewhat difficult thing to nail down, but frequently, it's said that city superintendents on average have a tenure of between 3 and 5 years, with a 2018 look from the Broad Center coming in a bit higher. 

While Worcester isn't among the 100 largest school districts, it has more in common with those districts than we do with our neighbors.

Is this an unusual time for such an announcement to happen?

No, this is exactly when a lot of these announcements happen, for the simple reason that it is when a lot of hiring happens. In fact, we're about at the anniversary of Dr. Monárrez being appointed. 

Does the district now need a superintendent?

Yes, districts in Massachusetts are required to have a superintendent.

Does there have to be a search?

No, there is no requirement that searches be conducted before an appointment.

What are the requirements of the school committee appointing a superintendent?

They have to conduct the vote in a properly posted public session, and they have to appoint someone who either holds or is eligible to hold a licensure for superintendent in Massachusetts.

Is there anyone who cannot be appointed?

Yes, because a school committee member cannot be a teacher or a superintendent in the district in which they are on the committee, a superintendent cannot be a member of their own school committee, per MGL Ch. 71, sec. 52.

Also, one cannot be a member of the appointing authority and apply for a position, under the conflict of interest laws (MGL Ch. 268A). 

And in Commissioner news

 This seems to be running rather below the radar¹ but, the Wallingford-Swathmore School Board of Directors, outside of Pennsylvania, will vote Monday night to name Russell Johnston, currently Massachusetts Acting Commissioner of Education, as their next superintendent. As the local Daily Times reports:

The district said it conducted an extensive search process and expects to appoint Johnston on Monday night and give him a five-year contract. The terms were not yet provided...
Johnston was selected from an extensive candidate pool, during a rigorous six-month search² led by a national educational search firm. Information gathered from focus groups and surveys across the school community was used to develop a candidate profile, the district said.

“It is my great honor to join the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District, and I am energized to join a school community that is so committed to excellent and equitable learning opportunities for all students,” Johnston said. “I am particularly drawn to the District’s strong focus on academic excellence, as well as an emphasis on fine arts and co-curricular activities. I am also eager to support the District’s work in ensuring every student, without exception, is provided the opportunities and support needed to succeed.“I lead by listening, and I am very much looking forward to listening to and learning from the students, staff, parents, and school community in Wallingford-Swarthmore.”

As the district currently has an interim superintendent³after having reached a separation agreement with their prior superintendent⁴ last Augus,⁵ the transition will be this spring: 

After May 1, Wallingford-Swarthmore interim Superintendent Dr. Jim Scanlon is expected to transition into a revised interim role with the district for the duration of the school year, to support Johnston through a smooth transition and to provide continuity in leadership, the district said.

That reads to me like Johnston is starting in May? Or is that just when the transition is starting?

Either way, it would appear that Johnston isn't staying on as Acting until we get the next Commissioner in place (unless the Board really starts picking up their pace). 

One hopes this means that they'll spend more than five minutes on the "update" that they get at their meeting--this is part of the Monday night agenda--as they have been for the past few months. 

In particular, this adds to the elephant in the room that Vice Chair Hills raised which has gone not only unanswered, but unaddressed entirely: if the current incumbent of longstanding service does not want the position, and now plans neither to be there for the transition but not even to be in the state, what does that say about the job? 

It is the Board, as the body that hires and evaluates the Commissioner, to pursue and answer that question. Something is not good about the working conditions of that office. I do not know what it is; I'm not in a position to. But if they don't answer that, they're setting the next person up.  

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¹Update your Google alerts!
²In Pennsylvania, as in some other states, it is possible to conduct an entire superintendent search in executive session, which Wallingford-Swathmore did.
³making a per diem fee of $1,540
⁴for a lump sum of $300k and an additional $30k contribution to his retirement account
⁵You could say that it hasn't been dull. Though the Acting Commissioner's big push on there being "right" reading curriculum will apparently have parental support. 

A word about superintendent evaluation

To the extent that we have a superintendent evaluation season in Massachusetts, it is superintendent evaluation season in Massachusetts¹, and so a few words on it, with a note or two for my fellow Worcester residents, as our school committee has to turn in their individual evaluations to Mayor Petty by the end of this week; those then are put together into a single composite evaluation.

A look at some struggles across the country in schools

I have had a few articles come across my timelines this morning that give some idea of how things are out there, as schools gear up to go back to school in August in many places.

• the North Dakota board that licenses teachers is asking the governor to waive the requirement that student teachers teach under a licensed teacher. That would mean the student teachers would be the teacher of record under their student teaching. The board cited the lack of teachers as putting the state in "imminent peril."
  
  
• You may have been following the evolving saga of Central Bucks School District in Pennsylvania, where a not-actually-even-conservative majority has been banning books, spending significant money to attempt to diffuse criticism of their anti-LGBTQ stances, and so forth since the board turned over. They just gave their superintendent a nearly 40% raise, making the superintendent of the 17,000 student district the second highest paid in Pennsylvania. 
  
  
• The Texas school funding system has long been...I don't think "a disaster" is too strong a word. Kudos to Texas Monthly for this excellent piece which both dives into the calculation (and why it doesn't work) and takes a deep look at what it looks like for Fort Davis Independent School District: 128 kids, 2,265 miles. 
  
  
• Mount Airy School Board in North Carolina recently censured one of their members for posting on Facebook an anti-LGBTQ meme. I'm sharing mostly due to the last line of the article, though: 
  

  He is one of several Christians who have expressed interest in “reclaiming the rainbow” from the LGBTQ+ community. In the Bible, God displayed a rainbow as a peace offering after drowning nearly all the humans on Earth for being evil.

Board of Ed: panel of superintendents

Dianne Kelly, Revere Superintendent
Patrick Tutwiler, Lynn Superintendent
Tim Piwowar, Billerica Superintendent

round of thanks here

Kelly: four areas of concern to highlight
then a couple of asks

1. mental health, not just of students but also of staff, which she characterizes from the student perspetive as being about remote learning, again. Concern about stress on educators given public vitrol, creation of data which "no one can say has any interpretable meaning" 
2. recruitment, particularly as teachers are being driven away from education, need pipeline and support
3. diversification of workforce, supporting those who already hold positions, as well. Vitriol disruption of work 
4. collaborate and engage other stakeholders and meaning of work

Tutwiler: painting a picture for you 
Certain that every community and district has a story to tell
"I'm not a representative for all district" but sure there are tight parallels
"this is by far the most challenging year I've experienced as an educator"
Deeply concerned about mental health of students
has stretched capacity of mental health supports of district, even as expanded through SOA
"has worked valiantly but struggled to move beyond triage"

discipline referrals and absences
staff finding a lot to bear, absences there as well
second is staffing
benefited from Student Opportunity Act
address decades-old issues; when it came time to hire, few resumes trickled in
profound worry added to be retirements and resignations right at start of year 

worry that staff will find it too much and move on
"you shouldn't be a superintendent or an educator if you're not an optimist"
"as hard as things have been, things will get better"

Piwowar: can't transform until stabilization and healing are met
has brutal year for about everyone in education, and harder than the year before
last year, challenges were being met by a sense that we were in it together and that this year would be normal
replaced by fear and anger
negative emotions have permeated so many of the aspects of our work
"the reality is there aren't people out there to be hired"
educators are often the primary caregivers in their own families
thus after school and other care are difficult to staff
"the word 'civil' in the phase 'civil discourse' seems no longer to apply"
understand work is to "act as a human shield" for staff
attacks on principals and teachers has such a detrimental effect
what can we collectively do?
regulation changes for less issues of compliance rather than focusing on staff needs
DEI for inclusion strategy, "where all really means all"

national narrative is impacting local districts' ability to work on this
significant staffing issues, flexibility on licensure
find a way to work together to change a narrative around schools
built on human capital
hope and optimism 
"not just the work that we do, but why we do the work we do for kids"

Rouhanifard asks what is working on mental health
Tutwiler: questions use of "working," talks about interventions, "ongoing"
Piwowar: need social emotional coaches
Tutwiler: make clear how SOA has made a difference for Lynn
2018 had 23 clinicians in 25 schools with 16K students
will have a 395% increase in what is being proposed
tiered support: "but what we are seeing is not tier 1"
Kelly: have almost doubled clinicians
in adult mental health: have worked to look at compliance measures and put some aside
reduced internal assessment, focused ed eval on those most in need of growth

Hills: if you're an optimist and think through next few years, things that are structural that DESE could do to relive stresses on educator pipeline
Piwowar: desire to work collaboratively on what those are
MTEL and used as filter to filter out candidates does limit pipeline
conversation about what it means to be a teacher
support doesn't culturally exist right now
Kelly: some being required to pass MTEL in 3rd or 4th year to continue in program
screening out some of "exactly what we need to be in the building"

Moriarty: didn't see the quantity of students who would arrive back in buildings in crisis would be so large
about academic achievement, but nearly impossible to do when students are in crisis
"talking about the lives and well being of kids who are in a severe crisis"
are we moving in some positive direction at all? other supports
Kelly: employee assistance program, wish we had
dearth of services for students beyond K-12 environment
Piwowar: town's insurance provides, only as helpful as employees wanting to access it
lack of external supports: those kids are still showing up at our door the next morning
Tutwiler: have seen ebb and flow around challenges in schools
Kelly: high school students, seniors were last to have complete year of high school in school
expectations will help, but won't help mental health issues
"have a whole lot of students who lost a parent...who saw someone close to them get extremely ill"
still have students coming to us with different types of trauma from other countries
and adult patience is short

Livingston: how are we helping kids who are in really bad straits?
could there be time in the school day?
Tutwiler: Lynn doesn't meet national ratio yet, will be next year if proposal
"not sure that's the answer, either"
what else can we be doing
particularly at secondary level, advisory is important
elementary SEL curriculum
Piwowar: whole group approach is depersonalized
"do you feel like you have a trusted adult in the building you can go to"
"it's those in between times"
rebuild those relationships, and advisories are a really great way to do that

Fernández: have heard this before, have heard it's the hardest year
what is really happening in our schools
"focus on what matters right now"
Board "in a place of readiness"
"what do you need?" as systems leaders

Piwowar: "aside from a 32 hour day..."
he's taking a long time to think about this
"I use the phrase 'human shield'" and haven't even gotten into everything
"if I could snap my fingers and have one thing happen" it would be to have people be nice to each other and work together
the war stories "are worse this year" than ever
Kelly: principals are experiencing the same kind of burden
dealing with such heavy things
need to know that state leaders are behind us in saying 'that's just not okay be anymore'
Livingston: what would zero tolerance look like for that kind of disrespect?
like with bullying in schools, we say there's zero tolerance?
Piwowar: we don't want to walk the line that we're denying First Amendment rights
one is messaging that we don't want that
and the other is counter messages of social media

Tells his staff not to go on social media
"and the doomscrolling that takes place"
Flooding the discourse with positivity and optimism about schools which would take being on social media
there are candidates that are running on negativity
not a zero tolerance but a counter

Craven: community partnerships
Tutwiler: came together to lift up entire community
relationships deepened and continued

Riley: statewide testing options extended now, next steps for summer and fall
USDA: approved P-EBT starting on May 25, end of June, then July
Congress not extending universal free meals: think there are implications