School Committee Extends Ash's Contract

The Lexington School Committee and Superintendent Paul Ash have agreed to a two-year contract extension that keeps Ash at the head of the district through June 2015.

School Committee Chairwoman Mary Ann Stewart announced the deal, approved unanimously by voice vote during a June 1 executive session, at her board’s June 7 meeting.  

According to Stewart, the vote came after a series of executive session negotiations that began in April, after Ash received what Stewart described as a “strong evaluation” from committee members, administrators and others.

Complete terms of the deal have not been revealed, but Stewart said the extension includes two additional years with the same annual salary increase rate of 3 percent.

“It has already happened,” she said “We have already extended the contract under those terms.”

Audience surprised  

Stewart’s announcement was quite a shock for the dozens of community members who attended the meeting expecting an opportunity to opine about the superintendent’s employment contract only to find out Ash’s contract was a fait accompli.

Ash's contract first appeared as an action item on the School Committee’s agenda late Friday afternoon. Over the next fw days, community members launched a spirited campaign to delay the vote until to allow for more public discussion.

It appeared as though their efforts paid off Tuesday afternoon, when a revised agenda replaced the vote with a discussion item, citing the desire to give the public time to comment.

After it became clear the vote had already been taken, Stewart was asked why the board held no public hearing prior to voting to renew Ash’s contract. “Good question,” she said.  

Comments offered Tuesday night ranged from questions about Open Meeting Law to outrage over the lack of public input.

“Does what these parents have said have any effect on the School Committee,” an animated Frank Sandy asked. “Or has all of our time here been wasted?”

Many speakers expressed concern about alleged low morale among educators and forced programmatic changes made to meet standards.

“An independent committee needs to be formed by the school committee to look into this and to get information from teachers and parents,” said Jerry Harris, a Parker Street resident.

Britta McCarthy, a parent from the Bowman district, implored the superintendent to “keep doing what you’re doing, but reconsider how you approach the teachers and staff, and be a little more open in allowing them to work with you.”

Superintendent speaks

After the public comments wound down, Ash thanked the crowd for coming and promised to listen and learn from his mistakes.

“One of the things that I talk to my staff about is that a healthy school culture is a place where you can have dialogue and you can have disagreement and you can come out of it stronger,” said Ash to the parents, educators and students in attendance. “I really value dialogue with anyone who will talk to me. I really like to talk and I really like to engage about what’s in the best interests of the students. A school district is a much healthier place when you can speak your mind, and you did that tonight.”

Ash said in the coming year, the district will conduct a survey to gauge teacher opinions on morale, materials, buildings and other subjects. The results will be shared publicly and used to develop an action plan, he said.

In closing, Ash said he believes the drivers of a really good school system are an environment of trust, collaboration, capacity building and leadership everywhere.

“Without the trust, and without the open and honest communication, you have nothing,” he said. “Where we have not done a good job, I want to say I’m sorry.”