jackiedoherty.org

Tonight’s special meeting of the Lowell School Committee will result in an important decision going forward in the search for a new superintendent. At stake is the makeup of the Citizens’ Screening Committee. What groups should be represented on the screening committee and how should individuals be chosen? What role should the citizens’ group play in the superintendent search process and what is the timeline? The personnel subcommittee will meet to discuss these questions at 7 p.m. in the LHS cafeteria, immediately followed by a special meeting of the school committee to vote on the issue. Although the meeting will be videotaped, it will not be broadcast live, so interested folks should attend. The committee will begin by reviewing similar motions by Jim Leary and Dave Conway that call for a total of nine members: 2 parents including one minority, 2 people from the business community, 1 person from nonprofit, 1 MCC, 1 UML, 1 former or assistant superintendent, and 1 teacher. Tonight, I plan to suggest an additional 6 members for a total of 15 as follows: 

• +2 parents (for a total of 4) representing elementary, middle, high school, and special education (also should include minorities) selected by CPC, Stand for Children, and other parent groups 
• +1 nonprofit organization rep (for a total of 2) to be chosen by the Nonprofit Alliance, representing programs that serve our families/students. The selected members from NPA should also be parents and/or minorities if possible, and the NPA should consider these preferential factors when choosing their representatives.* 
• Same number for MCC, Lowell Plan, and UML, as proposed by Leary/Conway motions except that each group gives preference to choosing representatives who work with our students and/or are parents of students in our schools (as above*) 
• +1 principal with minimum of 10 years experience in LPS (group self-selects)
• +1 full-time teacher (for a total of 2) with minimum of 10 years experience in LPS. Each teacher represents a different level of instruction (elementary, middle or high school) and one should be a minority. (group self-selects) 
• +1 social worker with a minimum of 10 years experience working with LPS students ideally at various levels in the system. (Supt of Student Services selects among interested social workers)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 at 12:53 pm and is filed under Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.