Gateway Regional Superintendent Kristen Smidy, at a budget hearing in March, has accepted a position as an associate director at the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.
Reminder Publishing file photo
HUNTINGTON — Gateway Regional Superintendent Kristen Smidy announced this week that she has accepted a position as an associate director at the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, the recognized accrediting body for schools and colleges in New England.
Smidy was chosen out of 185 applicants for the position at NEASC, which she called a “highly desirable role,” and said she is looking forward to working to help schools implement best instructional practices towards school improvement.
Smidy said she will leave Gateway sometime in August or September, after working with the regional school committee to make the transition “as seamless as possible.” Gateway serves the six towns of Blandford, Chester, Huntington, Middlefield, Montgomery and Russell.
“It really is dependent on what the School Committee wants me to do,” Smidy said on June 3. “There is a lot of good work that can be done to prepare for transition and set the new person up for success.”
Smidy, who lives in Westfield, began as superintendent of Gateway Regional in August of 2021, after previously serving as principal of the Hampshire Regional High School.
For NEASC, she will be working from home and will be assigned 15 schools that she will visit a couple of times a year as they go through the accreditation process.
She said NEASC works with the schools throughout the process. “The former model was evaluative; their new model is more supportive. It really is my cup of tea,” she said.
She also believes that her experience in rural school districts will allow her the opportunity to take the challenges of district funding to the state level. She said a lot of the schools in the Pioneer Valley have pulled out of the accreditation process because of strapped resources and time, which she said creates a divide.
The Gateway Regional School Committee voted last year to pull back and not undergo the process, a decision she said she fully supported at the time.
“Districts have a lot of competing priorities. Going through accreditation is not a mandate, and is one of the things that falls off for schools,” Smidy said, adding that she hopes to find ways to help districts go through the process without going through a lot of “extra hoops.”
“I will be bringing an understanding of the struggles in rural regional districts, which I think is a hole in their [NEASC’s] organization. I’m wicked excited about that. I’m very passionate about equity,” Smidy said.
During her four years as superintendent, Gateway Regional was selected as one of eight schools in New England to participate in the Barr Foundation’s highly competitive grant program to reimagine education, initially receiving a $100,000 planning grant in 2022, and a two-year $400,000 implementation grant in July 2024.
The grant allowed Gateway administration and staff to visit innovative programs in schools throughout the country, and bring some of those ideas back to Western Mass.
Smidy said the decision to leave her role as superintendent at Gateway Regional was a difficult one.
“I’ve had real joy working with the staff to move the district forward. I have not been able to focus on that this year,” Smidy said, adding, “I have realized more and more that the political aspect of the position is not where my heart really is.”
Smidy said she is sad to leave. “I’ve been in constant awe of the staff’s dedication to students and their extreme level of care. Our students are really wonderful, and they deserve every opportunity we’re working to give them.
“I said to the staff, I’ll still be cheering them on, and am looking forward to seeing how things progress,” Smidy said.
