AMHERST — A 20-member search committee, which will include parents and guardians, community members, school employees, high school students and elected school officials, is being put together to screen and interview candidates to be the next superintendent for the Amherst-Pelham school district. 

Both the Amherst-Pelham Regional and Union 26 school committees, which jointly make hiring decisions for the superintendent to oversee the Regional, Amherst and Pelham schools, are in the midst of a search process for a permanent superintendent to replace Michael Morris, who left the position at the end of August. Finance Director Douglas Slaughter has been serving as interim superintendent this school year.

School Committee member Jennifer Shiao, part of a four member Subcommittee for the New Superintendent, told the Regional School Committee at a mid-December meeting that the search committee will be a key part of identifying the next school leader.

“The job of the search committee will be the following: to view the applications of all applicants, to decide which applicants to interview, to interview those applicants and to decide on a number of finalists to put forward to the joint committees,” Shiao said. “That is the entirety of the job of the search committee.”

While Shiao acknowledged that the search committee will be large, she and the other subcommittee members, Shutesbury representative Anna Heard and Pelham representatives William Sherr and Margaret Stancer, want to err on the side of transparency and inclusivity. The idea is for the search committee to be made up of people from all socioeconomic backgrounds, races, ethnicities, sexual orientations and gender. In January, the Regional and Union 26 school committees are expected to approve its membership.

Those interested in being on the search committee can fill out forms online at arps.org/suptsearch/. The forms are available in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Paper forms also are available at the main offices of Crocker Farm, Fort River and Wildwood schools in Amherst, Pelham Elementary School, Amherst Regional Middle School and Amherst Regional High School, as well as the district’s central office in the middle school.

Under the current timeline, the superintendent job posting will be published in January and closed in February, with the search committee reviewing applicants, doing interviews and selecting finalists in March. Then, in spring, finalists will do site visits, meet the community and be interviewed publicly with the Regional and Union 26 School Committees deciding on who to select as the final candidate and to make a job offer so the person can start on July 1.

McPherson & Jacobson, an executive recruitment search firm based in Omaha, Nebraska, was hired to support the Subcommittee for the New Superintendent. It will put together a brochure to sell candidates on Amherst, the area and the school district.

The advertisement for the position will state that candidates must have at least 10 years of experience in public school administration and the district level, and be eligible for state certification in Massachusetts. There will be a preference for a candidate who has experience in multilingual and multicultural districts.

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