I attended the first superintendent search subcommittee meeting on March 3rd, 2004. The subcommittee consists of Suzanne Owayda, chair, Joani Lamachia, and Paul Schlichtman. They decided on a tentative timeline for the search: In February it was voted to start the superintendent search subcommittee, the March meeting designed the timeline and the next subcommittee meeting will be drawing up the superintendent's job description and by April it will be determined what is wanted in an RFP for a consultant(s) to be hired in June if determined beneficial, in August/September the position will be advertised, in September/October there will be a needs assessment with lots of community input. The process should be ready for final interviews in January/February with a signed contract in hand by March of 2005.

They also spoke about putting the minutes of their meetings and any voted and approved documents (timeline etc.) on the school web site http://www.town.arlington.ma.us/schools/scom/scommittee.htm and the SPOT website www.ArlingtonSpot.org

They discussed briefly the role of a consultant in this process. Paul noted he had to limit his discussions at this point because of his duties with MASC. They considered the idea that any RFP for a consultant would be set out in two parts, a community needs assessment as part one and the actual hiring portion as part two. This is an agenda item for the next meeting.

They also formed an initial list of community groups who they thought should get involved in this effort - school parents, students (AHS), pre-schools and pre-school parents, teachers/AEA, administrators/principals/central administration, town meeting members/fincom/selectmen, non-school people such as senior citizens, realtors, chamber of commerce, AYCC/AYA.

The next step will be to develop the job description.

According to the Massachusetts Association of School Committee data the average superintendent stays 5 years in a community, only 3 years for an urban community. Arlington has been able to keep its superintendents for longer it is thought because it is a good community in which to work. It was hoped that the superintendent found during this search would also become committed to Arlington's future.