AMHERST — Even after another three hours behind closed doors, members of the Amherst Regional and Union 26 school committees offered no further explanation Wednesday evening for their approval of a $300,000 severance deal with former superintendent Maria Geryk.
After the executive session, which began following the Union 26 School Committee’s 4-1 revote in favor of the agreement with Geryk, the boards voted to appoint Assistant Superintendent Michael Morris the district’s acting superintendent for the next four weeks or so. The committee did not have a legal quorum for its vote last week.
The committees unanimously approved an arrangement with Morris in which he will receive an unspecified weekly allotment on top of his existing salary, consistent with the weekly allotment Amherst has paid its interim town manager.
Regional Committee Chairwoman Laura Kent said the committees legally had to appoint an acting superintendent to carry on the work until an interim is hired.
Kent explained that she spoke to Human Resources Director Kathryn Mazur over the past week to finalize the deal.
“That’s the only person I talked to about this. It’s something that had to happen,” Kent said.
Morris said his goal is to work toward a distraction-free beginning of the school year for teachers and students, appreciating that teachers have done significant work during the summer to prepare.
Though Wednesday’s closed-door meeting was both a strategy session to prepare for contract negotiations with Morris, and a chance to review the minutes from 14 hours of executive sessions held July 13 and 20 and Aug. 1 and 9, the committees couldn’t resolve the release of the minutes.
Kent said there were a lot of discussions about this information, and the committees would discuss it further when they returned to executive session later Wednesday to take up an Open Meeting Law complaint filed against the School Committee, as well as Kent and member Katherine Appy, by Shutesbury resident Michael Hootstein.
Kent said this second session would yield a response to the complaint that would be forwarded to the attorney general’s office.
Caroline Murray, a Town Meeting member from Precinct 4, said she is troubled by the large settlement with Geryk, adding that Geryk had been operating without transparency, which she said manifested itself most recently in blocking her performance evaluation.
“She has not been accountable,” Murray said.
Murray added that there was no need for the committees to continue to discuss the content of the executive session minutes since the topic of the closed-door meeting was resolved with the separation agreement.
School Finance Director Sean Mangano said the fiscal year 2017 payment to Geryk, which will total $295,238, will be covered by budget savings, including $100,000 in reduced natural gas costs at the high school and middle school, leaving the director of equity and professional development position unfilled and various other contingencies, such as health insurance and staffing costs.
No money used for education of students will go toward the settlement. “This is our plan to get through the year without touching instructional spending,” Mangano said.
Mangano said Geryk will have her unused vacation pay paid to her next Wednesday, with the remainder coming at the next paycheck period.
The severance agreement, which also has not yet been released, calls for that timeline of payments, even though Regional School Committee member Vira Douangmany Cage filed a consumer complaint with the attorney general’s office seeking to stop it.
After exiting executive session, Appy, who is the longest-serving member, read a statement in which she said committee members are volunteers seeking to improve the school district.
“That public service should be honored and supported,” Appy said.
She said committee members and the community should advocate for teachers and children in a responsible, civil manner.
Appy said she is profoundly disturbed by attacks against members, including Kent, in recent months, and that the level of vitriol is uncalled for and unfair for the newly elected chairwoman.
“These personal attacks are unconscionable,” Appy said.
Pelham representative Trevor Baptiste, who with Douangmany Cage and Shutesbury representative Stephen Sullivan voted against the severance deal, said there is a need to unite towns and various communities and that everything done has to be transparent.
“Our community has a lot of healing to do,” Baptiste said.
Whitney Battle-Baptiste of Pelham made a passionate plea about her family being subject to attack, noting that she witnessed vilification of her husband when he was chairman.
“What I’ve seen here is some people’s opinions matter more than others,” Battle-Baptiste said. “What I’ve seen here is some people’s feelings matter more than others.
“Please don’t walk away from this with just a statement about the current chair,” Battle-Baptiste said.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
