The search to replace Daniel Warwick, superintendent of the largest school district in western Massachusetts, will be a national one and include the aid of an outside law firm, according to Springfield school officials.
The scope and technical details of the search were hashed out and approved by the Springfield School Committee as it met at the Putnam Vocational-Technical High School Thursday, Feb. 29.
But before the committee ultimately voted to advance its items, including amendments, flare-ups between committee members and attendees highlighted issues some had with the proposed search process heading into the meeting.
In one case, Mayor Domenic Sarno found himself bringing order to the meeting as an ad hoc committee shared recommendations on how to go about finding a new superintendent.
Up for a vote was approving a “hybrid method” for gathering applicants - technical services would be provided by the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC), with legal services contributed by the school district’s Legal Services Office and “appropriate SPS staff,” according to the agenda.
The ad hoc committee was formed soon after Warwick announced in January that he plans to retire at the end of the school year, following 12 years as superintendent and nearly 50 years in Springfield public schools in general.
However, the involvement of the school district in the search process, as well as the timeline of trying to find a permanent superintendent in the next few months - instead of naming an interim superintendent and taking more time - raised red flags with members of the public and some committee members like Denise Hurst.
Hurst repeatedly brought up the fact that during the previous search for a superintendent, the committee had significantly more time to outline the process, hear from the community, and more as it worked with the MASC.
“Why do we have to rush this process – we don’t have to rush this process,” the committee member stated.
It was August 2011 when then-superintendent Dr. Alan Ingram announced his departure, slated for mid-2012, following the end of the school year. The move gave the committee nearly a year before it settled on Warwick, Hurst observed. She also cited local media coverage at the time.
Meanwhile, fellow committee member Christopher Collins pointed to the minutes of contemporaneous school committee meetings.
He contended that much like today, the school committee in 2012 voted to establish a process in late February/early March, and that going forward now, community meetings for public input on the superintendent search would be held in the near-future.
Collins also contended that during the previous search, the school district relied a great deal on the MASC for the superintendent search, whereas now in 2024, SPS is equipped with legal and communications departments that can take up some of the work.
Still, involving the school district Schools in the search process to that extent and handling applications left Hurst as well as committee members Barbara Gresham and LaTonia Naylor with serious reservations.
They, along with a small protest group outside Putnam that briefly gathered before the meeting, demanded an outside law firm be part of the search instead of the legal counsel of Springfield Public Schools, making the search more independent.
The point was brought up multiple times before committee member Joesiah Gonzalez put forward an amendment that would drop SPS legal counsel from the hybrid search proposal, in favor of an outside law firm – specifically Bulkley Richardson.
“I think with the proposed amendment to use outside legal counsel, I would assume, I think this would accomplish that, you know, by having an outside legal counsel folks that are not under any potential bureaucratic or political pressures by being inside the system,” Gonzalez said.
The amendment was passed 4-3 – a change Sarno referred to as “a mistake.”
Before the vote, the mayor reiterated multiple times that the SPS chief legal counsel, Mindy Phelps, is in fact one of the individuals who helped the committee identify Warwick, back when she was with Bulkley Richardson, which was also called in to assist in 2012.
“There seems to be an innuendo here that something underhanded is going to go on and I take offence to that,” Sarno said. “We have a proven commodity in attorney Melinda Phelps.”
The committee went on to vote 6-1 to advance the amended search methodology, with Sarno voting “no.”
An agenda with exact dates on when community meetings will be held and the window for receiving superintendent applications has not yet been released.
