One Year Appointment for Maria Geryk

Here's the gazette link of the article:  http://gazettenet.com/2011/02/07/interim-amherst-schools-superintendent-maria-geryk-offered-perma.  And here is the Masslive article:  http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2011/02/interim_superintendent_maria_g_1.html.  And here is a more updated Gazette article:  http://gazettenet.com/2011/02/07/divided-amherst-school-panels-give-geryk-year.

It was nearly a 5 hour meeting, so I am not going to appoint to summarize it.  The gist is that all non-Amherst members and Rick Hood supported Maria Geryk and the other 4 non-Amherst supported someone else (initially two for Kohn - Steve, Rob, and two for Bayless - me, Irv, although Steve and Rob both changed their votes to Bayless after the first ballot).  The final vote occurred because Irv (who is on region and Union 26) agreed to a one-year term with Maria.  That vote passed 6 to 3 on Region (me, Rob, Steve opposed) and 4 to 2 on Union 26 (me and Steve opposed).  Maria will be evaluated by January 1, 2010 and at that time either will be released from her contract or her contract will be extended for a longer term. 

Here is my statement that I read, just FYI:

I’ve given this vote a tremendous amount of thought over the last few weeks, as I know all of my colleagues on this board have done.  There is no greater responsibility for the SC than choosing a superintendent, and I know we all take this role very seriously. 

For me, there are two real challenges in making this decision:  first, anyone we choose is a bit of a “leap of faith” in that you never know exactly how someone will be in the job until someone is doing that job (and we have one candidate who in fact has been doing this job and two who have not been doing this job – at least in Amherst), and the second is trying to focus on the totality of the information about the candidates (public opinion, references, prior work and educational history).  As we saw with the closing of Marks Meadow, there are often a small number of very loud voices with one view, and it is easy to assume that view represents the entire community.  So, I’ve tried very hard to consider the totality of information I’ve received from many sources (both in the Amherst area and from outside our immediate area). 

In thinking about my decision, the most important thing for me is where I see the schools right now and who do I see as the person/people who can help us build on our strengths and address the challenges we face.  I see real problems in the Amherst schools – and I know the problems in the Amherst elementary schools are frankly not the same ones seen in the elementary schools in Pelham, Shutesbury, and Leverett but many of the broader problems (achievement gap, finances) are seen in our elementary and regional schools. 

• In the Amherst elementary schools, we’ve seen a drop of 99 students this year compared to last, and this is 44 students fewer than we projected, with 30 students fewer than expected in kindergarten.  In addition, we are seeing a massive change in the demographics in our elementary schools:  over 50% of kindergartners currently in our schools are on free and reduced lunch (compared to 37% of overall elementary students, marking a dramatic shift).  I find this really concerning, as it indicates to me that a growing number of families are opting out of our public schools. 

• I see a big achievement gap in our elementary schools.  In our elementary schools, only 30% of African American students, 38% of Latino students, and 30% of low income students reach proficiency on MCAS math tests. 

• One of our three elementary schools (Fort River) showed declines in both ELA and Math MCAS scores for all students – the aggregate and most subgroups – from last year to this year. 

• I see problems in special education, with about 40% of parents not satisfied with their participation in their child's IEP, communication with staff, and the staff's responsiveness to their needs and concerns.

• I see huge budget problems now and in the foreseeable future, as indicated by Representative Ellen Story at the Four Towns Meeting last Saturday.

So, when I think about choosing the next superintendent, my primary concern is who the best person is in terms of moving our district forward as we face these pretty immense challenges in terms of achievement, demographics, and finances. 

I know that many community members and teachers have very positive feelings about Maria Geryk, and I hear this passion.  And I really wish I could feel good about supporting her candidacy, because in many ways, that would be the easiest choice since she is already here and known by our community.  But voting for superintendent isn’t supposed to be the easiest choice – it is supposed to be the choice that is best for our community moving forward, and as much as I appreciate the work she has done on creating instructional rounds and being visible in the community, I also have real concerns about her ability to handle the very real problems we face.

• We have a big achievement gap, and students who were failing MCAS were identified in September, yet the Achievement Academy didn’t start until January (half-way through the school year), which seems less than ideal.

• We have one school (Fort River) that is showing declines in both math and ELA MCAS and she hasn’t developed a plan to address this.

• We have real concerns from some parents in special education, and she hasn’t attended SEPAC

• We have major budget challenges, and it is February and we’ve not seen a budget at Amherst or Regional (and she has already cancelled the budget presentation set for Tuesday).  This is two months later than what we had with Alberto.

• We have had a report on math in our district from an outside expert in October, and it is February and we have had no action plan on dealing with this recommendation, despite the fact that we have a major achievement gap and lower MCAS math scores in 3^rd grade than the state average.  I haven’t seen any sense of urgency from her in addressing these long-standing concerns.

• We had, at the time of her appointment, a very divided SC, and I have seen no interest or willingness on her part of trying to bring the SC together, which is really sad to me.  I didn’t vote for Alberto Rodriguez, yet when he arrived, he reached out to me and met with each SC member individually each month, and really worked to understand all of our concerns.  I haven’t seen this type of interest in getting to understand those who disagree with her from Maria.  Relatedly, I know that Maria has reached out to some community members, but I feel that reaching out has been to those who support her – and there hasn’t been a willingness to do the same for those who have real concerns – about math, about special education, etc. - and I find that really unfortunate. 

So, when I look at Ms. Geryk’s performance over the last year, a year in which she was clearly trying to put her “best foot forward” in terms of getting the superintendent’s job, I have serious concerns.  And those concerns unfortunately make it impossible for me to take a leap of faith and vote to make her the permanent superintendent.  I feel really bad about this, as I know this vote in many ways would be the easiest one for our community, since she is of course by far the most familiar choice, and change is scary. 

I had hoped I could vote for Dr. Kohn and feel comfortable taking a leap of faith about his candidacy.  I liked his commitment to social justice and achievement for low income kids and kids of color, and I liked his ability to make major changes in struggling districts, and I liked his experience as a regional superintendent in MA.  But I understand that for many people in the community, and some of my colleagues on the SC, voting for Dr. Kohn would require too much of a leap of faith, and I can understand and respect these feelings, and therefore don’t feel comfortable supporting his candidacy either. 

However, after reading all of the comments from parents and teachers and community members and outside references (who have known Dr. Bayless for years), I feel quite comfortable taking the “leap of faith” necessary to offer him the permanent position. 

• He has considerable experience as a superintendent (11 years), meaning he’s dealt with precisely the types of things we are going to deal with (budgets, instruction, evaluation, etc.). 

• He has huge amounts of experience in business – he has a certificate in business and has served as an associate superintendent for business in three different districts, and has worked in California (a state with huge budget problems).  The Amherst and Regional schools have a budget of 50 million – and we really need someone with experience making difficult budget choices and gaining community support for such choices. 

• He is new to Amherst, and MA, but the challenges we face are precisely the types of things ALL districts face, and he has support from people (e.g., Rob Detweiler) in understanding MA laws and finances.  I believe the long-term knowledge and experience he brings is really valuable, and more than makes up for what he doesn’t current know in terms of specific MA laws/regulations.

• He has a strong focus on evaluation, and the importance of evaluating what we are doing to make sure that it is working.  This is NOT a strength of our current district, and I really think his focus on doing this would be invaluable.

• He is clearly dedicated to low income students and ELL (many Latino students in CA) students, and discussed a number of specific ways he had worked to improve achievement in these groups.

• He has intensive experience in developing strategic district plans, which is also not a current strength of our district and I believe could be really advantageous. 

• He has a very nice manner in terms of bringing people together – his idea of bringing together small groups of SC members (with different views) to discuss things is excellent, and is precisely the type of thing that I believe would have been really, really helpful over the last year. 

Will there be a learning curve if we offer the job to Dr. Bayless?  Yes.  But I believe that giving a couple of months to Dr. Bayless to learn our schools and towns and administrators and MA laws is a very small price to pay for gaining his extensive knowledge and background with finances and evaluation and bringing people together.  I feel 100% comfortable that Dr. Bayless has the ability to help all of our schools build on their strengths and work on their challenges and bring our communities together.  

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UPDATE:   It has been a very long day, and I don't think anonymous potshots at me or Steve or anyone on the SC is helpful or constructive or brings the community or the SC together in any way.  If anyone wants to share private thoughts with me, please send them to my private email:  casanderson@amherst.edu.  But I'm not going to continue to provide this forum for mean-spirited attacks.