Union study with Boxborough will continue

Joe Connelly (File photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)

The Harvard School Committee voted Monday to begin negotiations with interim Superintendent Joe Connelly to bring him back next year on a part-time basis. If a contract agreement is reached, Connelly, who is serving as a full-time superintendent this year, will work about 70 or 80 percent of the hours of a full-time employee, though on a flexible schedule.

The committee also voted unanimously (with member Patty Wenger absent) to begin a search for a full-time permanent superintendent no later than October. School Committee members think the pool of applicants will be stronger in the fall than now, as several superintendent searches are already in progress statewide.

In the meantime, Harvard is going to continue researching with the Boxborough school district the possibility of a school union agreement in which the two districts would share some administrative personnel. School Committee Chair Keith Cheveralls told the residents gathered in the Town Hall Meeting Room Monday night that the vote to bring back Connelly in no way obligated the district to any union agreement; it just gives it more time to fully investigate the possibility. If the School Committee had voted Monday night to immediately begin a full-time superintendent search, Connelly said, it would have effectively killed the school union option.

In December, a subcommittee consisting of Wenger, School Committee member Kirsten Wright, and Connelly, presented to the board a report that looked at four options for restructuring the administrative staff: a full-time superintendent, a part-time superintendent, a superintendent/principal, or a job-sharing union with a neighboring district, most likely Boxborough. Harvard, a district of about 1,200 students, has been without a permanent superintendent since Thomas Jefferson resigned at the end of the 2010-11 school year.

At the Dec. 12 meeting, the School Committee eliminated the superintendent/principal option. According to the subcommittee report, the part-time model could save the district about $85,000 each year, while the school union model could save between about $199,000 and $358,000, depending on how expenses are apportioned between the districts.

The union option

Connelly told the School Committee Monday night that his subcommittee has met with Boxborough four times, most recently on Jan. 6. At that meeting, Connelly said, he learned that Boxborough is committed to simultaneously performing a full study of a K-6 union with Harvard and a full K-12 regionalization merger with Acton. This was news to the subcommittee, Connelly said, because previously its members believed Boxborough planned on studying the Acton plan first before moving on to the Harvard plan. Currently, Boxborough high schoolers attend Acton Boxborough Regional High School, while the town maintains its own K-6 program.

"They have now told us they would like to conduct both studies during this school year," Connelly said.

Boxborough plans on presenting both schemes to its Town Meeting in May. If its Town Meeting chooses the Harvard union and Harvard agrees, Connelly said, Boxborough is proposing to begin a superintendent search in August of this year and beginning the union in August of 2013.

Subcommittee member Wright said she thinks the Boxborough School Committee members are committed to making a change to their district.

"They really have gone through a long process to get where they are," Wright said. "They would not move forward with something, would it not be supported by the community."

While all of Harvard's School Committee members agreed to bring back Connelly, they were not all enthusiastic about pursuing the union.

"I don't particularly understand why we're looking at changing something that is working so well," said School Committee member SusanMary Redinger.

Pursuing the union option, Redinger said, isn't worth the amount of "effort and risk."

Maureen Babcock, the Devens Educational Advisory Committee representative, also said a full-time superintendent was the best option, but, she said, "If it is true that a full-time search is better off held from October, I would support it."

Committee member Piali De, on the other hand, said she was "tantalized" by the prospect of a school union.

"I think we're incredibly lucky to have a neighboring town with very similar demographics presenting an opportunity. To me that seems like very good fortune," De said. "It isn't about the dollars we save. It is about what more can we bring to our school district with some of the advantages of the economy of scale with none of the disadvantages of losing autonomy."

Wenger, in a note to the School Committee, also said she was "intrigued" by the union option.

"It could be beneficial to us to act on it before it is forced on us," Wenger said.

Referencing the several residents who came to the meeting to address the committee about the decision it was about to make, Wright said, "I think that we have some work to do while we pursue this other possibility, and that's to bring in these different voices."

If he is still chair of the committee at the time a decision on Boxborough is required, Cheveralls said, he will commit to holding a public hearing on the issue and he implored a future chair, if it is not him, to do the same.

A 0.8 superintendent

New rules by the Massachusetts Teachers Retirement System will allow Connelly, a retired superintendent, to work up to the equivalent hours of .8 of a full-time employee in the 2011-12 school year. Previously, the School Committee thought that, after serving a year in Harvard full-time, Connelly would be able to serve only half-time next year.

At .8 of full-time, Connelly said, that would mean about 208 days of work for him. He suggested he, or whoever is hired for the position, be allowed to maintain a flexible schedule.

"If you didn't work as many days in July and August, you would, in fact, be able to have more days in the months that are more in demand," Connelly said. Essentially, he said, with a flexible schedule, he would be able to work close to full-time in September, October, November, and December, by working fewer hours in the summer.

"As long as at the end of that work year I didn't exceed my allowable earning, I wouldn't be breaking the law," Connelly said.

Further, Connelly said, if he were to begin with the intention of working a .7 full-time equivalency schedule, he would still have 26 days left to assign on an "as-needed basis."

In order to rehire Connelly as a full-time employee, Cheveralls said, the district would have to acquire a critical shortage waiver from the state.

"You have to go through the entire process," he said. "You have to post the job. You have to interview, and if an eligible employee came up with appropriate credentials that was not a retired superintendent, you would have to hire that person."

When asked by Cheveralls if he would be willing to return, Connelly said "a strong yes."

"From the first day I came here this past year, I felt a connection to this community," he said. "It's been a total pleasure. I would look forward to coming back another year within those limitations."

Community comments

Before the School Committee began its discussion Monday of the administrative options, several members of the community addressed the board on the issue. All of them said that a permanent part-time superintendent would be a bad idea in Harvard.

"When I think about the standards we have in this district...our superintendent is accountable for everything," said Woodside Road resident Virginia Justicz. "I think it would be very shortsighted to look at what I would consider nominal savings to go with the part-time model."

Justicz supported hiring someone full-time now to give that person an opportunity to spend a year in the district before having to negotiate new teacher contracts.

Bolton Road resident and Selectman Tim Clark said the Boxborough plan "sounds very high-risk" and may not even be feasible, considering Boxborough's affiliation with Acton.

"I can't imagine trying to deal with two different philosophies of communities," Clark said.

Michael Kilian, of Candleberry Lane, said missing from the subcommittee's report was "what actually happened at schools who did this [a union] in terms of efficiency of expected return."

"I don't think you're going to get all that efficiency out, because we're running pretty efficient, already," Kilian said. "...We all want to save money, but it's at quite a dramatic cost here."