MARBLEHEAD — After being named as one of two finalists for the interim superintendent of schools position, Barbara Cataldo has withdrawn her name from the running, leaving John Robidoux as the sole candidate.
School Committee Chair Sarah Fox announced Cataldo’s decision at a meeting of the committee.
“I was able to connect with Barbara on Monday, and she decided that she, at that point, was going to withdraw,” Fox said.
Though Cataldo, who is currently the interim student services director in Hingham, is out for this year, Fox also mentioned that depending on how the committee wants to approach the following year, Cataldo expressed interest in potentially joining the district in the future.
The committee has now moved forward in the process with Robidoux, Swansea’s superintendent of schools, and was scheduled to have a “day in district” with Robidoux on Wednesday. During the day in district, committee members will attend unified games and other community events in Robidoux’s district and speak with “administrators, staff members, parents, students, as well as the superintendent,” according to Fox.
Fox said that at the meeting following the day in district, the committee’s members will reconvene and discuss their observations, before setting up another day in district in Marblehead.
Committee member Jenn Schaeffner brought up concerns that some community members had expressed after learning of Cataldo’s withdrawal. Schaeffner said she has sat through “multiple superintendent and assistant superintendent searches” during two separate stints on the committee, and said that candidate withdrawals are not uncommon.
“What I have seen in my experience is that this is a process where this does sometimes happen,” Schaeffner said. “There’s a difference between only getting one candidate, or having multiple candidates and we narrow it down, and sometimes there’s some self-selection in that process.”
The news came after it was announced at the committee’s previous meeting that the Glover School principal finalist, Chris Norkun, declined an offer for the position. He has since accepted an offer at Lynn Public Schools.
