LYNNFIELD — The school committee voted to appoint Interim Superintendent Thomas Geary as the superintendent of Lynnfield Public Schools at its meeting on Wednesday.
In a Facebook post hours before the meeting on Wednesday, School Committee Member Jamie Hayman wrote he would vote “no” on the agenda item to appoint Geary to the permanent role of superintendent and said the Lynnfield community “deserves an explanation” as to why.
“I will start by saying that I think Mr. Geary has done a very good job as interim superintendent,” Hayman wrote in the post. “He has gotten us through the budget, handled some difficult personnel issues, and largely stabilized the volatile situation he inherited. For those reasons, I support considering him for the permanent position.”
He wrote in the post one concern is that Geary has not held a classroom position or helped a building leadership position.
When the School Committee last went through a superintendent search in 2020, it surveyed teachers and administrators about the attributes it should be looking for in a new superintendent. Hayman wrote in the post that more than 75% said classroom and/or building leadership was most important to them.
Hayman’s post said that he is concerned there has not been any survey conducted this year. His other concern is about the process “or lack thereof” regarding this agenda item.
“There has been no process of engaging the LPS community, in this case families, teachers and administrators, of what attributes and/or experience they feel is more important to them,” he wrote in the post. “It’s mind boggling to me that we would hire someone to be one of the highest paid leaders in town without so much as an interview.”
Geary has “earned the opportunity” to respond to these concerns and public questions, and “if after a full and transparent search he emerges as the best candidate, he deserves to be hired,” Hayman wrote in the post.
He wrote in the post that he takes “major exception to the approach this committee is taking this summer.”
“It is disingenuous to say we want LPS community input, and then start adding substantive meetings on the schedule five days into the summer,” Hayman wrote in the post. “Furthermore, by setting policies without data to back them up, without input from teachers and administrators who will have to enforce these policies, and without engaging parents who will need to reinforce the messages at home, we are unfair to our students.”
Committee Vice Chair Kristen Elworthy began the meeting on Wednesday with the committee chair update, which addressed Hayman’s Facebook post earlier that day.
“While each member is entitled to his or her opinion and disagreement is absolutely healthy discourse, there are some inaccuracies in the statements that I’d like to ensure the public is aware of and understands before we proceed on the very important agenda items on the table tonight,” Elworthy said.
She said the committee has been available to the public by posting its meeting agendas and allowing for public participation at every meeting.
Elworthy said she has heard “incredible things” about Geary from conversations with residents, including his “empathy, his care for the teachers, staff, and administrators in this district, his work ethic, his knowledge of the subject matter, his problem solving abilities and his collaboration with others.”
She said, “I think this committee has made a Herculean effort and transparency and open communication in the past several months and it is disingenuous to say otherwise. Simply because you’re not getting your way.”
Committee Chair Kate DePirzio said, “I feel the utmost responsibility to be acknowledging the incredible work of this committee. This committee is tireless individually and collectively, they work nonstop.”
DePirzio opened the meeting to public participation, during which 11 residents spoke.
The public participation period lasted more than an hour and a half, and many of the speakers criticized the committee’s process of appointing Geary as superintendent without a search committee.
Deirdre Donovan said she is a ‘lifelong resident” of Lynnfield who has had two children go through the LPS system and two who are currently going through it.
“Mr. Geary, I know you’ve done an amazing job and I absolutely thank you for that,” she said. “But I would just like to publicly support a full search. The job is just too important to not ask the best and the brightest to step up.”
Nicole Hawes, a member of the Lynnfield Teachers Association union, said, “Please allow me to begin by thanking Jamie for putting out some of the thoughts that we have been sharing as the faculty and staff.”
At a LTA meeting in December, the association invited the candidates for the open school committee seats to attend a question and answer session, Hawes said.
She said each candidate agreed “full transparency and open communication” were reasonable to building a “collaborative relationship” between the union and committee.
Hawes said she was “shocked and disappointed” while watching the previous school committee meeting to hear that committee members have been researching and drafting policies that will take effect in the 2024-2025 school year.
“The lack of transparency and lack of communication that we are again experiencing is quite familiar to us,” she said. “And it seems as though as we’re making the decision to appoint the next superintendent we have not been given that opportunity either. We genuinely want to foster an environment that would allow us to work together to restore faith in the school district and to allow learning alone to be the primary focus for all of us. All we can hope for now is that you were also willing to do the work that is necessary to repair what was and continues to be broken.”
Alex Celluci, another member of the LTA, addressed comments made by Committee Member Jim Dillon and Jenny Sheehan about the superintendent’s role while negotiating the collective bargaining agreement, during the meeting on June 27.
She said their comments were “tantamount to accusing our union of bad faith bargaining.”
“That was in reference to when we’re trying to make a decision about what direction to go with the superintendent, that you can be bargaining in good faith, but still not settling,” Dillon said. “It was really meant more that good faith bargaining can still drag on.”
Celluci said, “It is never our intention to stall bargaining intentionally… because that would be bargaining in bad faith and we would never intentionally do that.”
“Hearing it from that perspective, I first want to say, ‘Sorry.’ Because that was not my intention,” Sheehan said. “The conversation from my perspective is more, again, just around the timing of how long things take, even bargaining in good faith.”
Phil McQueen, a former school committee member, said, “We want a district leader who has educational experience, vision, and knows current contemporary curriculum, the current mandates from the Department of Education regarding high quality instructional materials. It’s not something we can skirt around.”
He said Geary has done a “bang up” job since taking over as interim superintendent and it isn’t a “personal attack,” but “we have to have an educational leader.”
DePrizio said, “We want to make sure that we are starting off the year at the best place possible for all of our students and to do so, time has to be considered.”
Geary said there are many upper-level positions open in the district and it is hard to fill those positions with an interim superintendent.
“I think we’ve become very stuck on the narrative that a search is the common practice for an interim,” DePrizio said. “It is 100% not. The common practice for an intern position is to evaluate and extend.”
“Tom has done a very good job and I think he’s very committed to the district,” Paul Briggs, an LPS parent, said. “I would like to see us go through a process and I’d like to ask questions about how people think about educating high school students and the challenges that they face.”
Briggs said he wishes parents had the opportunity to ask superintendent candidates questions, especially about how they would support high school students.
Tim Doyle, a former school committee member and chair, spoke in support of extending Geary’s contract.
“It’s appropriate to reiterate that no nationwide search, no series of interviews — either private or public — could test a candidate’s leadership skills, moral compass, and work ethic any better than what superintendent Gary has endured on behalf of this community for the past eight months,” Doyle said. “The students (and) staff in this community deserve consistent, honorable, and committed leadership wholly supported by a school committee who shares and embraces the same values.”
After the public participation and other agenda items, DePrizio “moved to appoint Thomas Geary as the superintendent of Lynnfield Public Schools, subject to negotiation and execution of an employment agreement.”
At the meeting, Hayman said, “Tom has done a really good job, and I don’t want to take that away from him… and I think he absolutely deserves consideration for this job.”
Hayman said this “doesn’t take away from the fact that we are hiring someone to run schools who hasn’t spent time in schools.”
He said he feels the process has been a “rush” and began only 23 days ago at the committee’s summer workshop.
Hayman said when DePrizio asked at the workshop about extending Geary’s contract, he was unaware Geary was interested in the position.
“That’s categorically untrue. Categorically. Maybe you have not had a conversation with him,” DePrizio interjected.
“You and I have talked once in the last seven months… The other board members have talked to me frequently,” Geary said.
Hayman said DePrizio said teachers would support this decision and Geary would not want the position if teachers did not support it.
“We certainly don’t have data that teachers do support this,” Hayman said.
The motion to appoint Geary as the superintendent of LPS passed 4-1 with Hayman being the vote against the motion.
