Worcester Schools superintendent search topic of virtual panel event
WORCESTER — The challenges of superintendent searches in urban districts will be the focus of a panel during a virtual event Wednesday co-hosted by the Worcester Education Collaborative and the Worcester Regional Research Bureau.
The experts will also discuss the skills and qualities needed for success in finding the right candidate, a process the Worcester School Committee has begun as it seeks to replace Maureen Binienda, the city's current superintendent.
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The virtual event will be held at 4 p.m. via Zoom, and is open to the public.
The panel includes Karin Chenoweth, writer-in-residence at The Education Trust; Keri Rodrigues, mom-in-chief at Massachusetts Parents United; Glenn Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees; and Paul Reville, Harvard Graduate School of Education professor and former Massachusetts Secretary of Education.
"We are deliberately, intentionally upholding it early in the process so the community can really get a sense from some outside experts," said Paul Matthews, executive director at the Worcester Regional Research Bureau. "Some of the factors to consider in a superintendent search in 2021."
Matthews explained that the Bureau worked with Worcester Education Collaborative during the last superintendent search to provide a research background for the new superintendent and "held likewise a similar forum, designed to pull in perspectives from outside the city to offer potential lessons and models to be considered as the search was conducted."
The upcoming event and panelists were framed based on that previous experience, he said.
Reville, a former Worcester resident and secretary of education under Gov. Deval Patrick, is familiar with Worcester schools on a local and state level.
The Massachusetts Association of School Committees, headed by Koocher, represents all state school committees.
"His organization gets together school committees, and is deeply aware and intimately involved with the challenges confronting schools selecting the superintendents," Matthews said.
Chenoweth, who will serve as the moderator, is a former Washington Post education reporter and has made a career writing about how successful schools and improving schools handle working with students of color and students from marginalized backgrounds.
Rodrigues is also a former journalist and labor activist, and now leads an organization focused on education reform and helping parents.
Matthews said that the organizations are holding this meeting at this point purposefully, as the School Committee selects a search firm for the superintendent search.
"We're intentionally holding this meeting at this stage of the process to help not only inform the process itself but the community at large as to how similar searches proceed, and some of the challenges and priorities are being recognized searches elsewhere. in the time we live in," Matthews said.
To attend, register here.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Worcester Public Schools virtual event superintendent search Dec. 1
