Local News
Manchester Essex school leaders to visit superintendent finalist's district
MANCHESTER — The search for a successor to schools Superintendent Marcia O'Neil has been reopened — but the Manchester Essex Regional School Committee still plans to visit the New Hampshire district of one of the last search's finalists.
Members of the School Committee, now deep into a three-month search for O'Neil's successor as her June 30 retirement date looms, met for an early-morning workshop yesterday to decide when best to make a site visit to the Shaker Regional School District, the two-town cooperative district of Belmont and Canterbury, N.H., headed by Superintendent Michael Cozort. He was among the finalists recommended by the search committee to be one of three finalist for the Manchester Essex post after a public interview a week ago tonight.
The entire School Committee, along with representatives from administration, teachers and parents, will be traveling to New Hampshire to tour Cozort's district next Friday, March 26.
Meanwhile, with a new search for potential candidates comes a new Search Committee. The original group, given the task of cutting the initial field of 25 applicants to the three finalists will be disbanded, School Committee Chairwoman Susan Coviello said yesterday.
"We're starting over with the Search Committee," Coviello said.
The new Search Committee will only have half the numbers of the previous board.
"We want the board to be more streamlined," Coviello said of the change. The new panel, she said, will include two to four community members, one School Committee member, one school administrator and one teacher, she continued.
Coviello said the fresh voices and fresh participation will help sustain the credibility of the search process, which began Jan. 4, when resumes for the superintendent's position were being accepted.
The School Committee has a meeting scheduled for March 23 in Manchester Essex Regional High School community room at 7:30 p.m., Coviello said, where the panel will roll out its new plans for the ongoing search.
Anyone interested in serving on the renewed search committee may contact school district administrative assistant Jeanne Sheperd via e-mail at sheperdj@mersd.org or by phone at 978-526-4919, x1006. Coviello said all letters of interest should be sent to Sheperd and received no later then Friday, March 26.
"The letter," Coviello said, "should include how interested applicants could best serve the Search Committee and what attributes they feel they would bring to the table."
The School Committee will have made and will announce it choices for the new members of the Search Committee at a meeting tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, March 30.
The initial search committee's three finalists were Cozort, Winchester Assistant Superintendent Marc Kerble and Winchester High School Principal Thomas Gwin.
But Kerble accepted a new job as Newburyport's superintendent the night before the Manchester Essex interviews, and the committee decided not to name either Gwin or Cozort last Friday night. Instead, Coviello declared that the search would be reopened, even as the committee has continued talking with Cozort.
Brendan Connolly can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3447, or gt_reporter@gloucestertimes.com.
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