AMHERST — On the eve of a consequential vote on a separation agreement with Amherst’s school superintendent, community members are reflecting on her legacy for the last six years and the future of the key position.
The Amherst-Pelham Regional and Union 26 school committees are expected to vote on a separation package with Maria Geryk Tuesday that would pay her one and a half years of salary and benefits. She earns $158,000 per year. Geryk was hired as superintendent in 2012 and had been interim superintendent since 2010.
School Building Committee member Irv Rhodes lamented the confusing process that has led to the vote.
“I think that it’s frustrating that it’s not really clear what it is,” said Rhodes, who served as the chairman of the School Committee early in Geryk’s tenure. “Was it a forced resignation? Was it a resignation that Maria was seeking? Did it come through a meeting of the minds?”
Rhodes said he’s sad to see Geryk depart under such circumstances. When the committee was seeking to fill the seat that Geryk would ultimately take, he said, he was wary of her abilities for the position. But the school committee, at least in his time, had a strong working relationship with Geryk, and he was impressed by her accomplishments.
“She brought some rationality to the budgeting process,” he said. “She created an incredibly good administrative staff around her. She did a lot of work in relationship to equity.”
Along with her accomplishments, Geryk also saw some highly publicized controversy. In 2015, a case involving the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination led to a $180,000 settlement for high school teacher Carolyn Gardner.
In March, Geryk issued a stay-away order against the parent of a Pelham Elementary School student.
Peter Demling, a parent of three children who’s been outspoken about school issues, said how he thinks of Geryk’s tenure reminds him of headlines about the recently announced retirement of New York Yankees player Alex Rodriguez — a “complicated legacy.”
“I always felt her heart was in the right place,” Demling said. “If I had to say one general shortcoming, it was the inability to engage her teachers and commit her vision of what she wanted to do in the schools with the people who would actually act on that vision.”
Steve Freedman, a Leverett resident whose now-grown children went through the school system, said he just hopes the committee fills the vacancy quickly.
“I hope it doesn’t take forever to fill that spot,” he said. “This being Amherst, they could extend this process for quite a bit.”
Rhodes said a new superintendent would need to be able to communicate well with parents, many of whom come from academic backgrounds and are heavily invested in their children’s education.
Demling said he hopes Geryk’s replacement could build strong relationships with principals, who have the greatest direct effect on students of any administrators.
Whoever takes over also needs the ability to untangle systematic problems not in policy decisions but in the implementations of those policies, he said. The successes and failures of a school system are on more than just the superintendent.
“I think we sometimes put too much emphasis on, ‘We’ll put in the superhero superintendent,’” Demling said. “In reality, it’s much more complicated.”
Geryk’s acceptance of the financial offer tied to her departure was mentioned in a confidential memo to committee members obtained last week by the Gazette, then confirmed by School Committee Chairwoman Laura Kent.
After the committees vote on the agreement in a closed session Tuesday, Chairwoman Laura Kent said the committee would release a statement to the public.
The session comes after 11 hours’ worth of closed-door meetings.
The committee meets at 5 p.m. in the Amherst Regional High School library.