Beverly Schools Opens Up New Superintendent Search

BEVERLY, MA — The Beverly School Committee will conduct an external search for its next superintendent on a tight timeline after Suzanne Charochak notified the Committee last week that she intends to retire at the end of her current contract.

The School Committee voted unanimously to conduct the external search — which had been pushed by the Beverly Teachers Association in the wake of this fall's historic strike — with School Committee Chair Rachael Abell noting that internal candidates will be encouraged to apply, though they will not receive any special consideration in the hiring process.

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"There is an inherent problem with superintendent searches in that if you have the impression that there is an internal candidate who is a shoo-in for the position you might not receive the interest and applications from external candidates who might be great," Abell said. "I appreciate that sometimes if you don't do an internal search you might lose people but I would hope that the right candidate — whether it's internal or external — would make an application in an external search because the kids of Beverly deserve it.

"It takes a lot of bravery to put your hat into the candidate pool to be a superintendent. It takes a lot of trust that the selection committee will keep your name and candidacy confidential because often the best candidates have pretty good gigs in other districts. It's not like there are factories out there where we are going to have a lot of candidates.

"It's going to be really important for us as a committee to remain super committed to the fact that we're going to treat this search professionally. We are going to do it with integrity. And that we are welcoming candidates to come and see just how special Beverly really is."

The Beverly Teachers Association last week demanded an expansive and nationwide search for a new superintendent of schools as a means for the city and School Committee to "rebuild trust" with educators after a 19-day strike in November.

The retirement announcement rekindled lingering frustrations and resentments over the strike that is forcing students in the district to make up 12 missed school days during the second half of the year — including forfeiting much of the two remaining vacations and adding five Saturday school days to the calendar.

While BTA leaders hailed the ultimate agreement to end the strike as one that would usher in a "wave of change" in the district, BTA Co-President Andrea Sherman said in a statement last Friday morning that "we've returned to a Middle School that largely operates with the status quo."

"We demand that BPS does the right thing and commits to finding the next top school manager to rebuild trust with the community," Sherman said.

Beverly Mayor Michael Cahill, who is also on the School Committee, said the external search will help to validate the ultimately successful candidate even if that person does come from within the district.

"As mayor, I have now been involved in two such searches," Cahill said. "The last superintendent search and our fire chief search. In both instances, we conducted robust external, open processes and I feel strongly that the processes had great value. In each instance, we ended up promoting an internal candidate, and from my part, I was really reassured and reinforced in my decision in those instances based on the fact that we conducted a robust, good faith, deep external search."

The Beverly School Committee also voted to allocate $11,500, plus reasonable expenses, for the Massachusetts Association of School Committees to help advertise and recruit for the position as well as assist in the conducting of the search.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)