AMHERST — A member of the Amherst-Pelham Regional School Commitee is pushing for the annual evaluation of Superintendent Maria Geryk’s job performance to be completed before the committee holds any additional executive sessions.
Trevor Baptiste of Pelham, who serves on both the Pelham and Regional school committees, was the lone member to vote against entering executive session at the meeting of the Regional and Union 26 committees Monday.
The meeting was scheduled to be held behind closed doors “to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with nonunion personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with nonunion personnel.”
Baptiste said Tuesday that he was compelled to not vote in favor of entering executive session because the evaluation of Geryk needs to happen first. “The reason was that whatever we are discussing behind the scene should be done after the evaluation,” he said.
School Committees are obligated to do such evaluations in public session.
The committees previously met in executive sessions on July 13 and July 20, for more than six hours, on the same topic. Geryk was not identified as the nonunion personnel being discussed at those meetings, but was named on Monday’s agenda as the subject of the executive session. When the motion was read to go into executive session by Chairwoman Laura Kent, though, Geryk’s name was not announced.
All three meetings are subject of an Open Meeting Law violation filed Monday by a Shutesbury resident who alleges the executive sessions have been for an improper purpose, that the committee used improper procedures to schedule and that the topics for discussion were insufficiently specific.
Hootstein said Tuesday that he intends to amend his initial complaint and file it with the committee and town of Amherst again.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
