School Committee welcomes Interim Supt. William Hart

Local resident always giving back to his community

By Neil Zolot

New Interim School Superintendent William Hart handled agenda items with ease in his first School Committee meeting Monday, November 6. It was a light agenda, but his demeanor was impressive considering he had been on the job only four days. “I’m no stranger to meetings,” he said, referring to his current role on the Board of Assessors and previous terms on the School Committee in the 1990s and the City Council as a 21-year-old member of the Common Council in the then bicameral City Council in the early 1980s. “Having served in a number of capacities, I know how to run a meeting.”

He had been briefed on various items, including a $107,700 state grant for afterschool programs at the Lafayette School, which he called “sizable.”

Hart once represented Ward 3 on the City Council, where he still resides, attending the old Lafayette School as a youngster. He recalled that at the time Everett was once the only city in the country with a bicameral form of government: a city council and a board of aldermen.

He later went to St. John’s Prep High School in Danvers, Merrimack College and Suffolk University. He is also a former teacher at Bunker Hill Community College and head of the Massachusetts Association of Community Colleges.

Hart’s history with the city and background played a major role in him being asked to become Interim Superintendent, a position he did not actively seek. “It’s never easy to walk into an environment where there’s been angst, but it’s easier in a city you know,” he said, a reference to Supt. Priya Tahiliani’s current status being on unpaid administrative leave – and the contentious October 30 meeting – pending an investigation into alleged misconduct that was brought to the attention of the city’s Human Resources Department, not the School Department’s. “I like to think my reputation exposed me to a lot of individuals who know my talents on how to run a multi-campus education system. I follow the news and was hearing from people. I think there may have been some consensus as to who could manage the school system and hit the ground running. I never applied. I was asked.”

Hart knows he was hired as an Interim Superintendent only by the School Committee. “I will serve at their discretion until they make a decision, whether to hire a new Superintendent or Tahiliani comes back,” he said. “I said I would make myself available for the time they need me and have no other agenda.”

Nevertheless, he feels his job is “not just to open the doors and keep the lights on. I feel I can add value. I’m here to ensure what is required of the staff is occurring the way it’s supposed to.”

To that end he’ll be meeting with school staff members.

Next year could possibly bring new members to the School Committee and a new Superintendent. Hart said he would be willing to meet with any new School Committee members between their election and inauguration. “If I don’t know them, I’ll make myself available to bring them up-to-date on matters they should know about,” he said.

He added that he will do the same for the Superintendent in 2024, whomever that might be. “I’d offer information in a transition,” he said.

As for the grant for afterschool programs at the Lafayette, which follows earlier grants in previous years, Hart praised the school staff and grant writers. “Grants are not easy to write and secure,” he said. “It’s a credit to the people who can write grants and get them renewed.”

Specifically, a Supporting Additional Learning Time grant from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is “to support the implementation of academically enriching programming during Out-of-School Time and/or Expanded Learning Time, an expanded school day or year for all students, that increases student engagement and contributes to a well-rounded education.”