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Ghana RPCV Mark Piechotta is superintendent of the Mount Greylock Regional School District in Williamstown and Lanesborough
Ghana RPCV Mark Piechotta is superintendent of the Mount Greylock Regional School District in Williamstown and Lanesborough
Mark Piechotta
Piechotta said he's seeking a larger, more diverse and challenging district. Raised in a lower-middle-class household where his father held three jobs, Piechotta said he would like to be among differing socioeconomic and racial backgrounds. Active in the civil rights movement, he joined the Peace Corps and served in Ghana, the only white man in a village of 5,000. The experience of being a minority has helped him to understand a diverse spectrum of people, he said. He taught English in Brookline for six years before taking administrative positions, including those of principal of Reading Memorial High School and assistant superintendent of schools in Ithaca, N.Y.
He spoke coolly of the MCAS test, saying as it needs to be accompanied by other kinds of educational assessments. For instance, he said, he implemented a senior project program at Mount Greylock in which every senior must give a presentation before a board, serve in the community and submit a project and an essay in order to graduate. "This process is an assessment of students and it's also sharing with the community our caliber of students," he said.
On his management style, Piechotta said he doesn't get angry often enough. He said he frankly told certain teachers in his district that "it would benefit them to (retire) one or two years early" so that he could better implement a rigorous teacher training program and bring in new blood. "It was very amicable," he said. If he is hired, Piechotta said, he will identify any negative perception of the schools "and develop a plan for changing that perception."
He said the district should "flaunt the excellence and brag about what we're doing," through brochures, interaction with the media and having one-on-one meetings with town opinion-makers.
"All the people that work in our schools are our ambassadors to the public," he said.
Having widespread support for the schools is more important because of economic strains, he said. After the Mount Greylock district eliminated its extracurricular budget, he said, residents raised $250,000 to restore the cut programs. In Milton, a group of parents raised more than $90,000 to do the same.
He said he currently delivers a monthly financial report to the administration and a quarterly report to the school committee.
Committee members could barely restrain from grinning when Piechotta described his recent appointment to the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, the group that put the high school on accreditation probation. The school is up for review at the end of the month.
Piechotta said that while he won't be permitted to vote or partake in Milton's assessment, he has a deep understanding of what the accrediting groups look for in their evaluations. Nancy Elizabeth Young Young described her familiarity with a large school building project. Holliston recently completed a $77 million, four- year construction plan. She said that in any large-scale building project a crisis is unavoidable. She detailed her struggles with air quality in one of the buildings and winning over voters. Milton is currently undergoing a $130 million project that is scheduled to be $13.9 million over budget.