Interim Supt. Connelly takes city school reins

The open door to interim Gloucester school chief Joseph Connelly's office is one of his first policy decisions.

Now two weeks into filling the departure of former Superintendent Christopher Farmer, and less than a week before the first day of school, Connelly is trying to introduce himself to Gloucester as quickly as possible and show people the district is not suffering a power vacuum.

"It is very important for me to be very visible in our schools and in the community," Connelly said in a Tuesday morning interview. "It lets people know that someone is here and in control."

If there are unique challenges to running a school system on a one-year contract, Connelly is an old hand at dealing with them. When he agreed to become Gloucester's interim superintendent this spring, Connelly was accepting his fourth interim administrator role.

What has he learned about running a school system as a guaranteed lame duck, with his contract due to expire at the end of March.

"The way you can be most successful is to approach it as if it is not interim, but as if you were permanent," Connelly said. "From day one, I am trying to move forward as if it is for the long term."

And in Gloucester, even more than other communities in the state, long-term issues dominate for any chief executive, no matter how short his contract.

As he worked his way into the job this summer, Connelly was immediately thrust into seemingly endless negotiations over and planning for the arrival of the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School.

While Connelly's first official recommendation as superintendent was for the city to step back from the issue, which he called a distraction, uncertainty still surrounds when the charter school will open and exactly what its impact will be on the district.

Despite a pending lawsuit to stop the charter and a questions about its fitness to open this fall, Connelly said Tuesday that planning for the school's eventual opening and the downsizing that would follow is one of his primary objectives for the coming year.

If the charter does open, the district will losing state funding starting with the 2011-12 school year and budgeting for that year begins this fall.

"This year one of the things we will have to do is address and identify what the least harmful actions would be if we face a $750,000 reduction," Connelly said. "For the past decade schools all over the state have been downsizing and this would be a example of that."

As for how to decide what the least harmful cuts to the school system would be, Connelly said "collaboration," with principals, teachers and parents will be a key.

For this school year, the only direct cost of the charter school to the district is the expense of busing students to Blackburn Industrial Park.

On Tuesday, Connelly confirmed that if the charter school pushes back its opening date — as is expected because of delays in installation of temporary classrooms — the extra days tacked on to the end of the charter school year will end up raising costs to the city. The charter school has so far tried to synchronize its school year with the district calendar to minimize transportation costs.

Even without the charter school, the district faces significant long-term planning issues that Connelly will be forced to deal with in his year at the helm.

The threadbare condition of school buildings tops the list.

When the city took over responsibility for maintenance of the school buildings from the school department this summer, Public Works officials were shocked at the poor condition of the facilities.

After months of work that included $200,000 of emergency budget transfers, Connelly Tuesday reassured parents that the schools are "in good shape" and "clean."

"The schools are old and tired in many cases, but are cleaned and prepared for kids," Connelly said.

At East Gloucester Elementary School, a mold outbreak has been removed from the building and repairs to holes in the roof, which caused the mold in the first place, are expected to be finished before the first day of school next Tuesday.

Other large summer repair projects included fixing the O'Maley Middle School elevator and adding extra classroom space at Plum Cove Elementary School.

Of course the ultimate solution to applying Band Aids to the city's tired old school buildings is to replace them with new facilities.

When the School Committee hired Connelly last spring, one of his selling points was his experience with school construction projects, 13 major projects during his career.

This year Gloucester is hoping to conduct a feasibility study with the Massachusetts School Building Authority on constructing a new West Parish Elementary School, which for many years has been the most crowded and deficient in the city.

The study is the first step toward getting partial state funding to build a new building and Connelly said he hopes to have the study commissioned by the end of this year and possibly completed by this time next year.

Before coming to Gloucester, Connelly, who began his career as a teacher in Wilmington and served as superintendent in Topsfield and Stoneham, had been principal of the John D. Runkle School in Brookline, the last in a string of interim posts.

His contract, which is technically split into two separate contracts, runs through the end of March and will pay him $86,000. Farmer's final contract paid him $145,000.

The city hopes to have a new permanent superintendent in place long before Connelly's contract expires.

This month the School Committee has approved a hiring schedule that will see the district advertise for candidates in October, accept applications until November and conduct interviews in December.

Assisted by the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, which the city signed to a $8,500 consulting contract, the Gloucester School Committee expects to hire a candidate in January to start in July.

The new superintendent will be making significantly more than the annual salary Farmer was making. The School Committee has approved a salary range for the new superintendent of between $150,000 to $165,000 a year.

Although he is not going to be a member of the 14-member superintendent search committee, Connelly said he is happy to lend any advice he can in the search.

In the meantime, parents and teachers, some of whom questioned Farmer's warmth and communication skills, can expect a friendly welcome from Connelly.

"Joe is extremely hands on, he is very down to earth and he is a quick read on issues and gets up to speed very quickly," said School Committee Chairwoman Val Gilman Tuesday. "He likes to be out of his office and be on site."

"I am an open-door superintendent," Connelly said. "I can't help if I don't know there is a concern. I want to be reachable and accessible."

Patrick Anderson can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3455, or panderson@gloucestertimes.com.

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