Longtime school board member Elric Cicchetti resigned from his seat Feb. 18, a day after he was the lone vote against a successful motion by the Hamilton Township Board of Education to remove interim superintendent James Sheerin from his position.

The move to fire Sheerin came as a shock, particularly because the interim superintendent only had a month remaining on his contract and because the board voted just weeks earlier to extend his contract to April from the original ending date in January. Cicchetti’s resignation only added further intrigue to the situation. He had served on the board since 2004.

“That [vote] was the icing on the cake,” Cicchetti said. “This board likes to micromanage. I’m not into that. It got to the point where I could no longer continue if the board was going to continue with that kind of behavior.

“It’s unfortunate, but sometimes you reach a point of no return.”

The board has 65 days as of Cicchetti’s resignation to fill the vacancy. School board president Patty Del Giudice said the board will advertise the opening and hold a meeting for potential candidates before appointing someone to the spot. She added that she will miss working with Cicchetti.

“We’re disappointed that Dr. Cicchetti would just quit instead of continuing to work with the board,” she said. “No one [on the board] wants to see anyone go.”

But Cicchetti said the other board members did not give Sheerin an adequate chance to defend himself against the charges raised by the board or adequate notice that the board was considering terminating his contract. Cicchetti emphasized he was not impressed with the rest of the board’s justification for removing Sheerin, but could not reveal what those reasons were.

“At that meeting, the board attorney told us we should not comment because, well, I don’t know,” Cicchetti said.

Del Giudice said Sheerin chose to have his case discussed in closed session, and therefore she could not reveal why the board decided to part ways with Sheerin or even why the board felt like it had to meet regarding his employment. She said the board has the right to discuss any district employee, and she merely facilitated that discussion. Del Giudice said she abstained from the vote.

Tension had built between the board and Sheerin in recent weeks, as the panel refused to act on candidates Sheerin had approved for three elementary school principal positions. The board said it did not want to hire anyone without the input of new superintendent James Parla, who will start in April.

To bridge the gap between Sheerin and Parla, interim human resources director Daniel Swirsky will act as superintendent until Parla arrives.

Del Giudice said Parla expressed interest in being involved in the hiring process for currently open positions while interviewing for the superintendent job.

“We had to respect that, and that’s when we decided we should table the matter,” Del Giudice said.

Reached for comment by phone, Parla said he respects and understands the board’s decision, but would have been OK had the board went ahead with Sheerin’s suggestions. He said he has reviewed Hamilton’s new multistep, standardized hiring process, and felt the process would be fine in choosing good candidates to fill the vacancies before he arrived in Hamilton.

Ultimately, he said, he’ll stand by the school board’s choice.

“Whatever the board wishes to do, it’s up to them,” he said. “At the same time, if they had felt appointing the candidates before I got there was in the best interest of the district, I wouldn’t have had a problem with that.”

Former board member George Fisher does have a problem with the board’s decision, though. He said the BOE could have less than pure intentions about delaying the new hires—and firing Sheerin.

“My sense is [Sheerin] wasn’t willing to bow close enough to the ground,” Fisher said.

At the heart of the issue is the new hiring process for administrators introduced by Sheerin this school year. The process virtually eliminated the potential for nepotism, and was very similar to the processes used in other districts, Swirsky said in an early February interview.

The district administration has heralded the change as a better way of attracting and selecting the best candidates for positions. The process is better, they said, because a carefully selected committee makes decisions based on predetermined criteria.

That, in theory, minimizes the sway one individual can have and also allows candidates to be graded on a fixed scale.
Screening committees include a director from the district office, a curriculum supervisor, a building-level administrator, two teachers, at least three parents, a child study team member and a support staff member. Before screening takes place, the district would vet the committee and remove any committee member who could potentially be accussed of nepotism or other conflicts of interest.

The committees eventually recommend two candidates to the superintendent, who nominates one of those candidates for the job. Final approval rests to the school board. The board used that power in the past month to cause gridlock in the district.
Fisher has suggested the board doesn’t like the process, but Del Giudice denied the claim.

“The board has said the process is good,” Del Giudice said. “We said that when Dr. Sheerin presented it to the board in October. The board was supportive then. We didn’t vote on it, but we supported it.”

The board also moved in January to examine relaxing its nepotism policy, which was approved last year and touted as the toughest in the state. The lack of movement on the hires, the potential for a relaxed nepotism policy and the manner of Sheerin’s firing has observers of the board, like Fisher, fuming.

“This is how they do things,” Fisher said. “It’s an incredible showing of ignorance and arrogance.”

But Del Giudice said this isn’t like the school boards of the past. It’s a different kind of group, she said, one that’s determined to work together. That focus remains, even with Cicchetti’s departure.

“The board right now is working as a unit,” she said. “The impression out there in the media is the board is scattered. That’s not true. This board takes its resposibility seriously. We want there to be discussion. We want to work to improve the school district. And that’s good for Hamilton.”