Pushback

Faced with mounting criticism over the school board's principal search trip to Arizona, the News-Times education reporter did an interview with Sal Pascarella where the school superintendent took to the defense

Pascarella continued to defend taking assistant high school principals Gary Bocaccio and Jesse Ballenger, and school board members Rachael Austin and Irving Fox, with him to visit the candidate's school.

"We're going to pay $140,000 for the job, so we want to be sure," Pascarella said Thursday. "Because we've had such a high turnover (of leaders) at the high school, it was important to have veteran high school administrators there.

"In 10 years, we have had five principals at the high school. I needed to have their (assistant principals') input and their eyes."

[...]

Pascarella also said the district saved money by not hiring a search firm.

Robert Rader, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, said a CABE search firm may charge as much as $20,000, depending on the scope of the search -- which includes site visits.

"In many cases, the pool of people available to take the jobs is small," Rader said. "It's becoming harder and harder to find people in Connecticut. The truth is there is salary compression."

Principals make more money than teachers, but they have more responsibilities and work much longer hours. The same is true for the difference between principals and superintendents, he said.

It's unfortunate that the reporter didn't address the charge made by the Mayor in which he stated the following:

Boughton, who was a social studies teacher at the high school for nearly 14 years before entering politics, said he knows for a fact there were "internal candidates who were discouraged from applying" for the job. "That's a problem," he said. "I know these individuals and I know they are capable of leading that school."

Hopefully, this alarming charge from the mayor will be addressed soon. Until then, you can read the entire story with Superintendent Pascarella over at the News-Times.