The Winchendon Courier
Serving the community since 1878 ~ A By Light Unseen Media publication
Week of July 29 to August 5, 2021

School Committee and King Agree to One-Year Interim Contract With Options

New Director of Pupil Services Selected


The light agenda of the Thursday, June 22 Winchendon School Committee meeting was in no way indicative of the district-wide weight of the decisions confronting the Committee. After discussion, the School Committee voted to promote and extend the service of Assistant Superintendent of Schools Thad King to the position of "Interim Superintendent" with a one-year contract deal which, dependent on performance, could be extended several years further.

King, who currently has a Masters Degree from Fitchburg State University in Curriculum Instruction, began his career in public education teaching science in Irving, Texas. He then taught adult education in the high-tech industry, until the tech bubble burst and King transferred to the Northeast. Returning to public education, King was hired as a science teacher in Lowell, Massachusetts and then advanced to the position of Middle School Principal at two Lowell Middle Schools, a regular and an alternative school. King next applied for and accepted the position of Principal at Murdock High School. Winchendon Public Schools Superintendent Joan Landers' impending retirement opened the door for King to serve as Assistant Superintendent. King has now officially received a contract for the position of Interim Superintendent of Schools.

King's contract states, "For the Period of July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022, while serving as Interim Superintendent, King will receive an annual salary of $156,000." The contract continues, "In the event that King is appointed to the position of Superintendent pursuant to Section II, Paragraph 2, the following annual salary rates shall apply to King's service as Superintendent during the contract term:

"January 1, 2022 - June 30, 2022: $166,000
"July 1, 2022 - June 30, 2023: $169,320
"July 1, 2023 - June 30, 2024: $172,700
"July 1, 2024 - June 30, 2025: $176,100."

The contract approved and agreed upon by the School Committee goes on to specify that the Administrator shall earn 35 vacation days per year at the rate of 2.91 per month in the fiscal year, must be used in the fiscal year in which they are earned, do not carry over, and the Administrator shall also be entitled to (20) sick days per fiscal year for genuine illness or disability, unlimited in accumulation.

Even before the March, 2020 pandemic shutdown, and more so now, it has been no secret among state education officials that the qualified pool of potential school superintendent candidates in the Commonwealth has been shrinking. The hours required of school superintendents, and the difference in pay scales between the public and private sectors, has been steadily increasing the cost of finding qualified candidates for open positions.

Speaking with the Courier on Tuesday, June 27, King said, "It's been very humbling since the beginning here for me. In my first year as Principal, people asked me if I like working in Winchendon, and if I was going to stay. That came from internal to the school district, and also from families, based on the history of administration. My answer was repeatedly that I like it here and I want to stay. I was not here to get a stepping stone on a better principal job or anything else. I chose Winchendon as a place I was looking for where I was really happy to land, and I am very happy to be here."

King went on, "With this one year contract with me, if I don't perform well enough to secure the position, the other years are gone. There is no fallback. I must interview and apply again. I will then interview and operate for this position as though I want nothing less but to get it, as this town deserves it. Interims are often hired to just steer the ship and keep it moving. I told the School Committee Chair, if we are going to come to an agreement about me being around another year, that I will do the work as if I am staying, because we literally don't have the time in this district for somebody to just steer the ship."

When asked about the Winchendon Public School District's direction, King said, "I am a pretty simple guy. We are an under-performing district and have been for a while, but in my opinion, the potential this district has is off the charts! Proof of that took place in my first year at the High School, where we moved either fourteen or fifteen percentile points in accountability. The High School is no longer a turnaround school, moving from roughly the eleventh to the twenty-fifth percentile. If I use that as sort of a benchmark for this district, then I think this community deserves to have a high performing school system, which produces positive student outcomes in all facets. My ultimate goal is to steer this entire district out of any turnaround, and provide a school district which represents this community. There is no reason why we can't be one of the top districts in this region." King also explained that currently, both Toy Town Elementary and the Middle School are at the Focused/Targeted Support level. King's goal is to raise those schools out of that category, just as he did with the High School.

King went on to explain that the 2021-2022 academic year should be a "Reset and evaluation" for the district, as it will be the first real year coming back from COVID. "Let's perform an evaluation of the systems and initiatives we have in place, and then evaluate them against what our expected goals and outcomes are, and then make those sometimes difficult decisions as to what do we keep and what do we not. We need to do a better job of assessing what students were supposed to have just learned, and using that data to sort of inform our instruction for the next number of weeks."

In addition to King accepting his new position with the District at the June 22 School Committee meeting, there was another important chair to fill: the position of Director of Pupil Services. According to King, of the seven finalists recommended by the hiring committee, the candidate chosen for the position was Nicole Heroux, currently a Special Education Coordinator for the Dudley-Charlton Regional School District.

King explained that the hiring committee included the President and Vice President of the Special Education Parent Advisory Committee (SEPAC), three WPS District Principals, and altogether had ten members available for evaluating and making a decision among the seven candidates. King said Heroux was the committee's final recommendation by unanimous decision. Heroux also formerly served as Director of Pupil Services for the Pathfinder Regional Vocational Technical High School in Palmer, Massachusetts for ten years. King said, "In a conversation with [the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education], we were told there are not enough qualified special education directors in the state to fill the positions needed, so being able to get someone qualified for our district is really great for district and our community."

In closing, King said, "I am truly humbled and extremely appreciative of the support I've received from faculty, from the community, and the school community in all the time I have been here since I first came to Winchendon. I was recently a finalist for the Superintendent's position in Greenfield, Mass. The agreement with our district's School Committee Chair is I would no longer continue competing for that job, and remove my name even though this is an Interim contract. I offered that to our district so that we could come to an agreement on an Interim contract--I would remove my name and candidacy as a finalist for the position in Greenfield which would have been a permanent position and not an Interim. I gave up a chance at a permanent job, and agreed to accepting the Interim position to prove I am committed to this community and to this district as long as they will have me. I look forward to the work ahead, and working in concert with all those stakeholders to create a better school system than what we have today. I am one hundred percent committed to this school district and I wanted to leave no doubt about that."

Mount Wachusett Community College Awarded Over $1.1M to Support Adult Education

GARDNER, MA - July 26, 2021 - The Adult and Community Learning Services (ACLS) unit of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has awarded Mount Wachusett Community College grant monies totaling $1,108,106 to support basic skills education, occupational training, and post-secondary enrollment for adult learners in our region.

The Adult Education Services Continuation grant of $958,106 funds free access for eligible undereducated and limited English proficient adults, age sixteen and older, to highly effective adult basic education services in sixteen Workforce Investment Areas. The grant also includes $42,335 directed toward the Integrated Education and Training program HiSET/GED preparation with Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) Training and an additional $37,665 is directed to the Integrated English Literacy and Civics Education program which combines ESOL instruction and CNA training. Each program is funded to support twenty students.

An additional grant of $150,000 was awarded in June for the Transition to Community College program that supports students transitioning from adult education programs to post-secondary enrollment.

The purpose of these services are to assist adult students to achieve their educational and career goal as family members, workers, and community members, and prepare them to successfully take their next steps toward those goals, in college and further training, at work, and in the community.

"The continuation of this grant funding is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our Adult Education team of advisors, and educators," stated MWCC President James Vander Hooven. "Their work truly reflects the MWCC mission to be a lifelong learning community dedicated to excellence in education and responsive to the changing needs of the communities we serve."

"Through this funding and your continued support, we hope to provide high quality adult education services across 16 local workforce development areas and statewide for Adult Education and Correctional Institutions," stated the grant award letter signed by Governor Charles Baker and Lt. Governor Karyn Polito.

The grant will allow MWCC Adult Education and Training division to provide Adult Basic Education to 115 students and English as a Second Language to 154 students.

"Our adult education programs are vital to the success of our community," notes Adam Duggan, Dean of Adult Education and Training Services. "These programs allow us to help students build the personal, social and academic skills needed to successfully complete a college program and go on to employment."

The Adult Education and Training (AET) Center offers classes in Adult Basic Education, high school equivalency preparation, English for Speakers of Other Languages, and a variety of other programs. The AET Center is headquartered at the Leominster campus, alongside the MassHire North Central Career Center.