Superintendent Reviews Summer Personnel Activities

By Adam Swift

Superintendent of Schools Lisa Howard discussed resignations and hirings over the summer at Monday night’s school committee meeting.

“As of right now on our list under personnel appointments and new hires, we don’t have any for this meeting, however, we had two resignations, one of an ESP (educational support professional) and one of a reading specialist,so we are asking to post those in terms of personnel, ” said Howard. “In terms of personnel, the hiring process has gone very well for the positions where people have resigned.”

The superintendent said the district does an exit survey for the purpose of finding out why people are leaving the district.

“It is super important to know if there are any issues, and on that survey, it asks about salary, it asks about commute, it asks about family, and what are the circumstances in which you are leaving,” said Howard. “It also gives an opportunity to tell us areas where they think we need to improve on. As of this point with the resignations of people leaving at the end of this school year and up until now, we haven’t had one person say they are leaving because of salary.”

Howard said the primary reason people have given for leaving the district is the distance and commute, however she added that two people are leaving the teaching profession altogether.

“That is kind of sad because they were younger and hadn’t been teaching for more than three or four years,” said Howard. “Those are the trends that we are seeing, people are moving too far away to get to Winthrop, and that can be as close as Beverly. That commute can be difficult for folks.”

She said there has been no negativity that has been registered in the surveys.

“No negativity on the part of how they felt they were treated in the school, how they felt welcomed, how they felt part of the school,” said Howard. “Salary issues, contract issues, those are not what seems to be driving people based on what I am seeing back. I do think that is data that is important to keep; we started doing that … eight years ago, and it has been telling, because you can pick up on something if people give you information on how they didn’t feel included or welcomed, you can dig into it a little bit more, even though that person is gone.”