Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional School District’s Director of Curriculum Erin Fahey-Carrier was interviewed by the STGRSD School Committee on June 15 for the superintendent’s position. She was chosen to succeed current superintendent, Jennifer Willard, when she retires next June.
Reminder Publishing photo by Cliff Clark
SOUTHWICK — Erin Fahey-Carrier, the regional school district’s current director of curriculum and former Powder Mill School principal, has been chosen by the School Committee to become the new superintendent.
She will officially take over next June when current Superintendent Jennifer Willard retires.
“I think we get the best of both worlds in the same person,” said Robert Stevenson, the chair of the Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional School District School Committee, about Fahey-Carrier after he provided the reasons he believed she was the better choice.
On June 15, Fahey-Carrier and Dr. Ginger Coleman, the two finalists to replace Willard, answered seven questions at a special meeting of the School Committee about how they would lead the district.
Fahey-Carrier is currently with the regional school district as its curriculum development director and has been with the district since 2017, which is when she was appointed as principal of Powder Mill School. She also served in leadership roles in the Chicopee and Westfield school districts.
Coleman is the director of student services for Ware Public Schools and has been there since August 2023.
The seven questions covered leadership and vision, budget management and resource allocation, crisis management and problem solving, community relations and communication, equity and student achievement, staff leadership and organizational structure, and strategic planning and long-term decision making.
Stevenson, mentioning that both candidates knew the questions beforehand, said both did a good job.
“I think one of them stood out to me. [Fahey-Carrier] took advantage of that time to make sure that when she came before us to interview [for] the most important position that they could ever aspire to, [she] was extremely prepared,” he said, referring to Fahey-Carrier’s answers.
He added that both candidates were similar in their philosophies and values, but there was a difference.
“To me, the difference is, why do I want to go with somebody that’s the same thing when I’ve already got somebody that’s got similar traits in a lot of aspects,” Stevenson said, adding that while Fahey-Carrier was already working in the district, he considered her an outside candidate. “I think she brings forward outside ideas, even though she isn’t technically an internal candidate. And I think that you can have an outside person that’s been here for eight years that brings a plethora of ideas to the table.”
Committee member Pamela Petschke said Coleman and Fahey-Carrier were excellent candidates, and “represent different things.”
“I think it comes down to what we as a committee most value as we move forward,” she said before making it clear that she “worked very hard to go into this entire process with an open mind.”
Petschke said that Coleman would bring “fresh perspectives and new ideas.”
And then referring to how each answered the questions, as Stevenson did, she said she was impressed with Fahey-Carrier’s responses.
“I was very impressed with the way that Erin was very strategic in how she dissected the questions, how she answered the questions, and then how she summarized her answers to each question,” said Petschke, who represents Granville on the committee.
She also addressed the fact that Fahey-Carrier was an internal candidate.
“While I understand that there are both strengths and weaknesses when you have an internal candidate, I do feel that Erin genuinely has her finger on the pulse of this district and made it very clear tonight what she thought are the opportunities for growth and improvement were,” Petschke said.
Committee member Jennifer Burkholder, like Petschke, also said Coleman would bring a “different perspective” to the district, which “seems like that is something that people in the town would like too.”
However, she also saw the “strong side” of Fahey-Carrier.
“Which we know already. And I think she’s definitely capable of this job,” Burkholder, who represents Southwick on the committee, said of Fahey-Carrier.
Burkholder also acknowledged Fahey-Carrier’s experience and knowledge, but said one of her “concerns” was that she was an internal candidate.
“I think one of my concerns on the internal candidate is just the current state of the teachers and the administration,” she said without explaining the “current state.”
“No matter who is selected, I would like to see as a very clear goal [and] overall vision for improvement because it does seem like there’s some sort of a disconnect there between … communicating to the staff and faculty,” Burkholder said, referring to the current district administration.
Judy Stanley, who represents Tolland on the committee, also noted how Fahey-Carrier answered the questions and that both she and Coleman were “presenting fairly similar goals and visions of what they would bring to a job.”
She particularly liked Fahey-Carrier’s focus on school culture.
“I did like Erin’s focus on culture because I think it can be very wishy washy and a sort of term that gets thrown around. But when talking about a culture of appreciation, there are morale and trust issues that can be addressed,” Stanley said.
Committee member Melissa Morrissey also thought both interviewed well.
“I think that both of them are obviously very high energy, have a lot of experience, are both looking to be seen, to listen to others, to be in a leadership role that’s involved in the school, which I think is going to be huge,” Morrissey said.
“I think we need that. We need somebody who’s present in the halls, who’s friendly with the kids, who knows what’s going on,” Morrissey continued. “I think they both have that quality.”
Committee member Ryan Korobkov, who represents Southwick, said, like the other committee members, that Coleman would bring a new perspective.
“Our opinions are shaped by our experiences. So, Dr. Coleman, coming from somewhere totally different, not that Erin hasn’t. She’s been other places, [it] could be beneficial as far as new ideas and cultivating and seeing our culture from the outside,” Korobkov said.
“I think they’re both qualified and good in different ways,” she said.
Both candidates were asked questions about district finances.
Fahey-Carrier said the first step is finding out which financial decisions would have an impact on individual students and groups of students in the entire district.
“We need to be able to communicate when we’re making decisions on what that impact will be to all stakeholder groups so that they’re understanding the underlying decisions behind what we’re doing now,” Fahey-Carrier said.
She then acknowledged that residents don’t always agree with difficult budgetary decisions.
“But people deserve honesty and transparency, and they need to know how decisions were made. So that’s really important. When I look at the entire decision-making framework, and I pair it with communication, I would follow a pretty strict, straightforward approach starting with fixed and mandated costs, understanding those best, getting a handle on them, and then communicating that to our populations, all of our stakeholders,” she said.
Stevenson said that was one of Fahey-Carrier’s strengths while recognizing the difficult budget decisions that will need to be made next year.
“We’ve already started talking about it now; we’re going to involve the public into more of the budgetary side of this. We are going to hit a 2 1/2% override vote, whether we like it or not,” Stevenson said.
“So the more information and the better that we can educate the public as to what we’re dealing with. And I think it’s exactly what Erin said. We need to figure out what we’re standing for, what do we want, what does the district want?” Stevenson continued.
“And then once we decide that if you have to go into a 2 1/2 % override because you need to be able to provide what the district and the towns have all said that they want, I think that’s an easy vote.
“If you go into a 2 1/2% override and people don’t know what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, or how you’re going to do it, it’ll go down,” he said.
With that, the committee voted unanimously to appoint Fahey-Carrier.
