AMHERST — Three candidates remain to become the acting superintendent for the Amherst, Amherst-Pelham Regional and Pelham schools in advance of Thursday night’s joint meeting of the Regional and Union 26 committees.

Amherst representatives Ben Herrington, who chairs the regional committee, and Peter Demling, who chairs the Union 26 panel, informed staff and families late Wednesday that the choice of acting superintendent to fill the role while Superintendent Michael Morris is on leave will be between Trevor Baptiste, Susan Hollins and Douglas Slaughter.

They were among eight individuals suggested by the nine members of the regional committee and six members of the Union 26 committee to serve in the role on Tuesday evening. The other five individuals, who all work within the school system, declined to pursue the position.

“We will discuss those who responded ‘yes’ and vote to appoint one of these three candidates,” Herrington and Demling wrote.

Slaughter has been finance chief for the schools since January 2020, and prior to that worked more than 12 years as the database analyst and assistant director of Information Systems for the schools.

Hollins was superintendent of Greenfield public schools from 2008 to 2014 and worked in education in both New Hampshire and Vermont.

Baptiste has been the director of sustainability at the School of Sustainability at the University of Massachusetts and a teacher at Putnam Vocational Academy, as well as a former member of the Regional and Pelham school committees.

The personal statements and resumes for each finalist are available at https://arps.org/school-committee/

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.]]>