While the School Committee is charged with hiring a new superintendent, it is the superintendent's job to hire the principals, said Ward 3 School Committee member Howard Moore.
Members of the Northampton School Committee are sworn in in January 2012.
NORTHAMPTON — The School Committee will be even busier interviewing candidates for administrative positions in the School Department as Northampton High School Principal Nancy Athas has announced her retirement and Leeds Elementary School Principal Joseph Smith says he is leaving his post to seek new challenges.
The committee must already search for a replacement for Robert K. Finn Ryan Road School Principal Margaret Riddle, who previously announced she will retire at the end of the school year and School Superintendent Brian Salzer, who is leaving for a job in Germany after less than two years in Northampton.
Athas, who previously served as the principal at Greenfield High School, has been in Northampton for five years. With her seventh grandchild on the way, Athas said it is “time to move in another direction.”
“I’ve been in education for 37 years,” she said. “It’s been a long haul. The career I picked was the right one for me. I loved what I did.”
Athas hopes to stay involved in education through consulting and volunteering. Her five years at the high school were busy and sometimes trying. Last year the school went through its once-in-a-decade assessment by the New England Association of Secondary Schools and Colleges. Athas has also had to oversee the departure of teachers as money has become increasingly tight for education.
“When you have a product that’s good, it’s hard to see it shrink and shrink,” she said.
Her last day will be July 26.
Smith, who has been at Leeds since 2010, will beat her out the door by almost a month. He said he decided to step down on June 30 even though the School Department had renewed his contract until 2016.
“I’m looking for a different environment with different challenges,” he said.
As Northampton’s first African-American principal, Smith has overseen a staff and student body that was less diverse than in Amherst, where he taught and served as assistant principal at Crocker Farm Elementary School. Nonetheless, he said he has enjoyed his time at Leeds and worked hard with the teachers and students there.
“I think I’ve led Leeds to a place that will be much easier for my successor to carry on what I’ve started,” he said.
Salzer, 45, is leaving in July to take a post at an international school in Germany. Riddle has been with the Northampton schools since 1978 and has been principal at Ryan Road since 2006. While the School Committee is charged with hiring a new superintendent, it is the superintendent’s job to hire the principals, said Ward 3 School Committee member Howard Moore.
“It seems like quite a large number of spots to fill,” said Moore. “I don’t think there’s any way to say it’s a good thing.”
However, Moore said he supports the decisions to leave by the individuals involved and suggested this will be an opportunity to fill the spots with people who have the skills for those posts.
All the principal positions have been posted, Moore said, and he expects Salzer to begin looking for candidates. The School Committee was scheduled to begin the task of replacing Salzer at its meeting on Thursday.