As the search for a new superintendent of Springfield Public Schools continues, the first of five public input meetings will be held at the Van Sickle/Renaissance Schools at 1170 Carew Street at 5 p.m.
The meetings come as officials continue to receive applications for the job, currently held by Daniel Warwick, who is set to retire at the end of the school year after 12 years in the role.
At the same time, a recently-selected subcommittee charged with screening applicants has also been coming together and meets this week with a new chair.
The Superintendent Search Screening Committee, a 13-member group made up of parents, teachers, and others, was selected and approved by the school committee in recent weeks.
Their role includes reviewing applications gathered by an outside law firm involved in the search process, and ultimately coming up with 3-5 candidates to pass up the chain for interviews and more.
According to school committee member Barbara Gresham, when it came to applications for the subcommittee, there was a healthy number of participants.
"It shows me that we have a lot of people in the community that’s interested in being on the committee, and interested in making sure that we have a leader that has our students’ education, best interests at heart," Greshman said during a meeting on March 20.
According to the school committee, at least 60 people applied.
The screening committee also recently had its own orientation, where they selected a member to chair the body.
The screeners went overwhelmingly with Imani Hines-Coombs, principal of The Academy at Kiley. She accepted the role during the meeting while spending most of the time with others listening to instructions given by Bulkley Richardson law firm member, Mary Jo Kennedy.
Earlier in the month, Hines-Coombs was interviewed to be on the subcommittee by another subcommittee - the ad hoc Superintendent Selection Advisory Committee.
“As a current principal, I know the amount of work that our current superintendent has put in to try and ensure that our students have access to a world-class education," she said. "I also know that with the loss of ESSER funds, declining enrollment, and the rising cost of living, we will need a leader with a courageous vision, who can help us navigate what is to come.”
The school committee ultimately approved the selected screening committee members, but not before calling attention to a lack of representation.
Despite a being a school district of 24,000 students, officials found that not one student had applied for the single seat reserved for a student on the screening committee. That included student representatives who have appeared at school committee meetings.
Of the 13 individuals, three spots went to parents, two to representatives of local businesses, three community members, two administration members, and two teachers, with one final spot going to a student in the city.
School committee members spent much of the March 20 meeting discussing what happened and how the subcommittee was advertised.
Officials recommended giving the seat to the parents group while sharing concerns that the committees might run into the same problem when it comes to having students attending the public input meetings.
"So, what do we do to make sure that they understand, especially our high school students, who we see clearly can be involved and speak up, that they understand that this, too, includes them," committee member Denise Hurst asked.
Potential solutions included having schools make mention of the meetings during morning announcements.
According to an official timeline posted on the Springfield Public Schools website, officials anticipate holding their final interviews with superintendent candidates in late-May.
A full list of dates and locations for the public input meetings can be found here.
