At the end of the 2021-2022 school year, Harwood Unified Union School District (HUUSD) superintendent Brigid Nease will step down. Her replacement will begin work on July 1, 2022, in advance of the 2022-2023 school year. The HUUSD Board has contracted a national search firm McPherson & Jacobson to conduct the search for the new superintendent.
After community meetings, surveys and a series of interviews, three top candidates have been identified. They are Mike Leichliter, superintendent of Penn Manor School District, Pennsylvania; Zach McLaughlin, superintendent of Springfield School District, Vermont; and Meagan Roy, director of student support services, Champlain Valley School District, Vermont.
Next week, the candidates will take tours of each school and meet the principals of the six schools in the district and undergo 30-minute community interviews in addition to more in-depth conversations with the HUUSD Board in executive session.
Interviews are being recorded Monday, January 31, and Tuesday, February 1, and will be broadcast starting at 6 p.m. on Harwood Union’s YouTube channel on Tuesday Community members will be able to weigh in on each candidate via a survey that will be available at https://huusd.org/superintendent-search through midnight on Wednesday, February 2.
At its January 26 meeting, the HUUSD Board voted not to automatically mail ballots to all registered voters ahead of Town Meeting Day on March 1, 2022. Mail-in ballots are available upon request only by contacting the local town clerk.
At the meeting, the board passed a $42,655,858 budget to warn for Town Meeting Day and allocated the $1,524,424 surplus from last year to the maintenance reserve fund.
The Legislature is allowing districts to decide whether to continue offering hybrid school board meetings or to go fully remote again. The HUUSD Board decided to continue offering both in-person meetings at Harwood Union High School and Zoom options. Several board members expressed a strong preference that board members attend in-person, if possible, but that the public continue to have the option to participate via Zoom.
