Seven Superintendents in fifteen years and counting!

Like many of us I’ve watched the saga of another school superintendent being run out of town by the Marblehead School Committee with sadness and anger. Seven Superintendents in fifteen years and counting!

The Marblehead School Committee continues to be a highly politicized and seemingly dysfunctional body. Nowhere is this more evident than from it’s recent conduct; from publicly sending contradictory signals on the job performance of the Superintendent to a new member who did not respect the voters enough to tell them of his lawsuit against the Superintendent (prior to the vote) and to the newly reconstituted Committee hiding behind what appears to be its real intentions in “executive session” and “on the advice of counsel.” This behavior is an insult to the taxpayers, children and faculty of our schools.

I suggest that next year when the School Committee comes before us to request yet another tax increase to fund the School budget voters take this conduct into account. Ask yourselves how many of your tax dollars have been wasted buying off superintendents over the years along with the costs of hiring executive search firms to source new candidates for the position. This is money that could have been better spent educating our children. 

Harlan Strader

Risley Road