Editorial
In the category of “you can’t make this crap up.” No Valley news story in recent memory outranks the outright amateur hour playing out in Easthampton over the last few weeks. The story began in a rather routine manner, a school superintendent resigns, a committee is appointed, interviews are conducted and finally, a candidate is chosen! What could go wrong?
Apparently, everything. The follies started with the committee apparently making an offer to their initial selection, Dr. Vito Perronne. While it’s not unusual for committees to deliberate late into the evening to make their selection, sending the police to the candidate’s door at midnight to awaken them to inform the candidate of the committees decision is. But, incredibly, this appears to be precisely what happened after the committee’s March 23 meeting. A morning phone call wouldn’t work? One has to ask what were Mayor LaChapelle and School Committee President Kwiecinski thinking.
Of course, the follies continued, just a few days later, after Mr. Perronne used the incredibly offensive word “ladies” and dared to make the first move in contract negotiations, Lachappelle and a majority of the committee seemed to change their mind and decide that negotiations and communication were just too hard, so they rescinded their offer. Of course, they scheduled a meeting on Tuesday, April 4, but were “surprised” and unprepared for the interest, the Zoom platform was overwhelmed and the meeting was canceled. But fear not, the committee was not dissuaded and continued their mission to hire he best superintendent possible for Easthampton, so on April 10 the committee offered the job to Erica Faginski-Stark. Yet another oops of course. Apparently, Faginski-Stark had made some trans-phobic posts on her Facebook page. Of course, it was a member of Easthampton’s highly qualified and well-prepared school committee that exposed this issue right? No, an EHS student, raised the concerns and brought them to the attention of Mayor LaChappelle’s office. Faginski-Stark removed her name from consideration and the search but the process highlighted significant communication issues between the Mayor’s office and the entire school committee, more than a few of who’s members were unaware of the student’s concerns.
One thing is clear, the system in Easthampton is broken, when a process as simple as the hiring of a superintendent and negotiating a contract becomes this much of a mess it demonstrates the failings of the system. Easthampton’s School Committee appears dysfunctional, Mayor LaChappel appears to lack basic communication skills and the community as a whole was embarrassed and left in the dark. Easthampton deserves better.