Ex-Easthampton candidate rejected in nearby district
Hampshire school panels vote against offer
The school committees of the Hampshire Regional School District voted Thursday against offering an assistant superintendent position to Erica Faginski-Stark, who in April withdrew her candidacy for superintendent in Easthampton after students raised concerns about what they described as her “conservative and transphobic rhetoric” on Facebook.
“On Thursday, June 22, 2023 during a joint public meeting of the five school committees of the Hampshire Regional School District, Superintendent Diana Bonneville recommended Erica Faginski-Stark for appointment to the position of Assistant Superintendent,” said Hampshire Regional School Committee Chairperson Kim Schott in an email. “After discussion, each committee voted not to approve the appointment.”
The district includes the towns of Westhampton, Southampton, Chesterfield, Goshen, and Williamsburg.
Schott didn’t immediately respond to a follow-up inquiry about the votes. News outlet MassLive reported that a small group of students had staged a sit-in Wednesday outside Bonneville’s Westhampton office to protest the candidacy of Faginski-Stark.
A call to a number listed for Faginski-Stark wasn’t returned Friday, and neither Bonneville nor her administrative assistant responded to e-mails seeking comment.
Faginski-Stark pulled out of the running for the Easthampton superintendent job in April, just days after the Easthampton School Committee voted to offer her the position. At the time, the Daily Hampshire Gazette reported that Faginski-Stark withdrew after students raised concerns about her in an e-mail sent to Easthampton Mayor Nicole LaChapelle, but the mayor did not specify the nature of the concerns.
A copy of an e-mail exchange obtained by the Globe, however, revealed that students in Easthampton told the mayor they had found a Facebook page, which they said they believed belongs to Faginski-Stark, that had posted “conservative and transphobic rhetoric a multitude of times.”
“I am requesting that you please cross check with her about this account,” one student said to LaChapelle in an e-mail sent April 10, the night the School Committee voted to hire Faginski-Stark as superintendent. “With the recent anti-trans picketing, many youth in the school are concerned and angry.”
LaChapelle responded to the student on April 12 and said she would follow up with FaginskiStark and get back to the student. In an e-mail sent to the student on April 13, LaChapelle said she was actively following up on the concern and thanked the student for speaking out, adding that “no person should have to hold such concerns.”
The names of the students were redacted from the e-mails “to protect identity of minor[s] for ongoing security concerns.”
In an April interview with the Globe, LaChapelle said that after receiving the student’s concerns, the matter was immediately investigated and she informed School Committee Chair Cynthia Kwiecinski about it. LaChapelle said she also looped in the Easthampton Police Department so that they could help verify whether the account was real, which they did and found that it was connected to Faginski-Stark.
LaChapelle added that once Kwiecinski told Faginski-Stark about the concerns raised, she decided to withdraw her candidacy.
“When a concern comes forward around disregarding, lessening [or] bias against a particular group of community members, the assumption automatically is it is true,” LaChapelle said. “We need to proceed with a logical, rational investigation of then looking at what the concern’s about, verifying it and then going from there.... Our school committee members have acted out of what they feel best is for the department with what knowledge they had at any given time.”
That development was another embarrassing setback for the Easthampton School Committee, which selected FaginskiStark after the committee’s first pick, Vito Perrone, said his offer was rescinded for addressing his future colleagues as “ladies” in a negotiation e-mail.
Faginski-Stark was one of three finalists for the superintendent position before Perrone was selected in March.