SCHOOL COMMITTEE EYES WIDE SHUT

The discussions of SPS administration incompetence, adversarial culture, questionable conduct, or unscrupulous hiring practices the often lead to the question of how the current school superintendent was selected for the job.

 

Dr. Rizzi first entered Stoughton Public School system as an Assistant Superintendent on 11/20/2007, with a 3-2 school committee vote.  Three School Committee members voted to hire Dr. Rizzi.  One committee member voted no because he did not like the process of having only one candidate. Other dissenting committee member said "This person has only four years in public education. To throw her in without the guidance of a permanent superintendent is crazy. I didn't vote to bring her to this level from the search committee."  (See Reference 1 below.)

 

Then a new search committee was formed to find a good superintendent for Stoughton. A private search company (NESDEC) was paid $20,000 to coordinate the superintendent search process. Many applications were received and extensive interviews were held with well qualified applicants.  To see one of the finalist applicants in action, two school committee members and the interim superintendent even took a nice trip to Washington State at the expense of the school department.

 

After spending more than $20,000 in taxpayer funds on the superintendent search, the school committee decided none of the applicants were good enough for Stoughton. A school committee member, who later served time in a federal prison, made the motion to appoint Dr. Rizzi as the permanent superintendent. (See reference 2 below.) Interim Superintendent Anthony Sarno recommended her appointment.

 

Since, Dr. Rizzi did not apply for the superintendent position she was never a candidate. Only one school committee member objected to this process. Yet, the rest of the school committee voted to appoint her as the superintendent, after a short service as an assistant superintendent. Anthony Sarno was hired as Dr. Rizzi’s paid mentor.

 

As you can see, Dr. Rizzi was lucky or clever enough to avoid the scrutiny of the search process in both of her Stoughton appointments. She has recently used similar tricks to hire her friend from Hull for a well paying key position. She has used her “single candidate” trick for other school committee hires too.

 

Her past performance indicates that Dr. Rizzi is not a good educational leader for our Town. However, Dr. Rizzi has demonstrated formidable political skills by controlling the local press and keeping the majority of the School Committee, Finance Committee and the Town Meeting members under her thumb. She seems to be the master of hiding areas that need improvement, and embellishing news that will give the impression that she is doing a good job. Now, she wants to hire a public relations specialist at taxpayer expense to make her administration look palatable to residents.

 

Our focus must be in improving the achievement of all students in Stoughton Schools. Then the results will speak for themselves. We need a superintendent who will deliver solid results.

 

Behind the “lollipops and rainbows” images our current superintendent and school committee representatives struggle to portray, there exists a sobering reality that we must drastically improve the education in our schools.

 

Reference 1: Snyder’s Stoughton, www.wickedlocal.com/stoughton , posted November 29, 2007.

Reference 2: Snyder’s Stoughton, www.wickedlocal.com/stoughton , posted October 16, 2008.