AMHERST — Members of the Amherst, Pelham and Amherst-Pelham Regional school committees will continue an executive session that began Wednesday night on Monday, after an evaluation of Superintendent Maria Geryk is made public.
The joint meeting of the three boards is scheduled for 5 p.m. Monday at the Lewis-Sebring Commons in Valentine Hall on the Amherst College campus.
The meeting’s agenda shows that it will begin with the release of the review of Geryk, followed by a discussion of the committees’ roles and responsibilities, with the executive session scheduled to resume at 6:30 p.m.
Though nine members from the three committees met for three hours behind closed doors Wednesday, no details have been made public about what was discussed. The executive session was posted “to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with nonunion personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with nonunion personnel.”
Geryk, whose evaluation was a topic of the meeting’s agenda, was not present for either the public or closed portions of the meeting. Efforts to reach Geryk by phone Thursday were unsuccessful.
School Committee members contacted by phone and email Thursday said they would not divulge any information about the executive session.
“By law we are not allowed to discuss the content of executive sessions,” Regional School CommitteeChairwoman Laura Kent said in an email.
Amherst School Committee member Anastasia Ordonez said the topics of executive sessions are not for public disclosure. “I have no comment on that,” Ordonez said.
Trevor Baptiste of Pelham, who sits on both the regional and Pelham school committees, said in a telephone interview he is bound by confidentiality, and Amherst School Committee member Vira Douangmany Cage said by email that she could not comment on the executive session.
Kent said Wednesday night that the executive session and Geryk’s evaluation are separate matters.
The Massachusetts Open Meeting Law requires that accurate minutes be recorded of all meetings, including executive sessions. The minutes are public, except that those recorded during closed sessions may be withheld from disclosure “as long as publication may defeat the lawful purposes of the executive session, but no longer,” according to the law.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
