MARBLEHEAD — The School Committee aborted a vote on the early termination of Superintendent of Schools John Buckey’s contract Wednesday night.
At the 7:30 p.m. meeting, which lasted less than a minute in total and was held via Zoom, School Committee Chair Sarah Fox said that the night’s agenda would not be carried out.
“We are no longer going forward with this meeting tonight due to last-minute communication between counsel,” Fox said. “I have been advised to adjourn the meeting immediately at 7:31 p.m.”
Former School Committee member Sarah Gold wrote in a statement to The Daily Item that the committee’s decision to cancel the vote was not surprising.
“This committee is filled with cowards,” Gold wrote. “This is cruel at this point and seems as though they are working behind the scenes to keep this out of the public. It’s disgusting.”
The committee was set to vote on the early-termination clause listed in Buckey’s contract with the school district. The agenda for the meeting was posted to the town’s website on Monday, after the committee held an executive session on Friday. The description of the executive session’s agenda item was “to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with nonunion personnel (Superintendent).”
Had the vote been taken, School Committee member Brian Ota was set to recuse himself as he currently has an open complaint against Buckey, which was filed with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination after Buckey did not renew his contract as principal at Glover Elementary School.
In Buckey’s initial contract, which was given to him in 2020, the early-termination provision stated that “The committee may terminate this Employment AGREEMENT and the Superintendent’s employment at any time on or prior to August 31, 2022 without cause by providing the Superintendent with at least one hundred (100) calendar days written notice and paying the Superintendent an early termination payment of Ninety-Two Thousand Five Hundred dollars ($92,500) minus withholdings for state and federal taxes and other witholdings required by law or authorized by the Superintendent.”
In 2021, Buckey received a three-year extension on his contract, which is in place through 2025.
The cancelled vote came nearly a month after the committee conducted its yearly evaluation of the superintendent, which saw Buckey receive an overall grade of proficient for the 2022-2023 school year.
The review, posted on the school district’s website, said that Buckey demonstrated “leadership and dedication to the district and improvement in transparency of the budget and detail provided to the district this year.”
The review also listed a number of growth areas for Buckey. The first was that “a point of continued improvement would be to then transition from data to instructional/process/ with measurable outcomes for the district.”
The second growth area listed a number of questions presumably intended for Buckey’s consideration, including how data is being used to inform practices, how data is being used to course-correct and improve student learning, and how the success of those practices is being measured.
The last growth area focused on improving his encounters with critics.
“Dr. Buckey needs to ensure that he continues to lead proactively rather than reactively,” the evaluation read.
The reason why the vote on Buckey’s early-termination clause was initially scheduled is still unclear.
