Redding, Easton begin search for superintendent
REDDING — School officials kicked off the superintendent search this week to replace Thomas McMorran, who will retire this summer.
The members of the Easton, Redding and Region 9 school boards met Tuesday night and established a few committees for the search. McMorran announced he was retiring about a week and a half ago, after serving as the districts’ superintendents for five years and assistant superintendent for eight years before that.
This is the sixth permanent superintendent search the districts have held in the 21st century, said Redding Board of Education Chairman Christopher Parkin.
“I’m feeling sad tonight — sad that we’re losing a superintendent who has given 13 years of his professional life to the people and students of Redding and Easton as an administrator and I’m sad because it feels like we as communities have failed in some way,” Parkin told the three boards. “We allowed a superintendent with forward thinking ideas and aspirations to be ground down by the way we do business in our towns.”
He said he’s been reflecting on the inefficiencies in how the districts operate, which have been highlighted during the coronavirus crisis.
“We all need to reflect long and hard about how we treat our administrators and what message we as two communities send to potential candidates by the way we engage in our business,” he said. “We need to do more than talk about improving our ways of working in considering regionalization. We need to think about taking affirmative steps forward in that direction and not waste anymore.”
One of the challenges has been that central office must do tasks three times — once for each district. Regionalizing and combining the three boards would cut down on that but some obstacles, such as the different bargaining units and separate contracts between the three boards, makes this transition hard.
The three boards created a personnel search committee Tuesday night, which includes all 21 school board members and then a smaller search steering committee that includes two members from each board with three members from each town. The board chairs can also attend and vote at those meetings.
The steering committee will review resumes, interview and screen candidates and get bids for a search consultant if members want to use one. The finalists and the search consultant would go to all of the board members for approval. The steering committee will also outline the search process and bring that back to the full board for approval June 2.
Mike D’Agostino, a Region 9 board member, opposed creating the committees because he said all of the board members should create the selection process and more say in the selection itself.
Parkin, who proposed the committees, said the steering committee should create the process because they’re doing the heavy lifting and will know what works best for them.
Mary Lee Pampel, a Region 9 member, supported the committee but wanted others in the districts who will work with the superintendent daily to be involved in the selection process. This includes parents and teachers.
“I still want to make sure there’s representation from our various school communities before we get down to one or two,” she said.
The three boards also approved a negotiating committee that will work on contracts with central office administrators. This committee will continue past hiring the new superintendent.
All of the board members stressed that time was of the essence because McMorran is only staying on until Aug. 15.