The Tri-District committees and a administrative subcommittee will interview three candidates for interim superintendent next week.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Mount Greylock Regional School and its two feeder elementary schools will interview three candidates for the interim superintendent position it needs to fill by Jan. 1.

Representatives from the three school districts served by the Tri-District central administration met on Thursday morning at the junior-senior high school to discuss the interview process and decide on questions that will be asked.

The three finalists for the six-month position are John Burruto of Amherst, Gordon L. Noseworthy of Northampton and Donna Emily Moyer of Stockbridge.

Two of the three have experience in district administration and recent experience as interim superintendents — Noseworthy in Pittsfield from 2012-13 and Moyer in Hadley from 2012-14. Burruto is a former principal at Windsor (Conn.) High School.

The Administrative Review Subcommittee, comprised of two representatives from the Mount Greylock School Committee and one each from the Williamstown and Lanesborough elementary school committees, reviewed the applications and decided to ask all three in for a series of 45-minute interviews next week.

The interviews will be conducted by the subcommittee in a public meeting that will include the seven-member Mount Greylock School Committee and the Superintendency Union 71 Committee, which is made up of three representatives each from the elementary school committees.

A majority of both the Mount Greylock and SU71 committees — four votes on each — will be needed to select a successful candidate.

Mount Greylock Chairwoman Carolyn Greene initially had misgivings about inviting Burruto to the second stage of the process.

"I was hesitant about him because he doesn't have superintendent experience," Greene said.

"What concerned me was the concern that the [Tri-District] principals had about having to train someone. If we had someone who already knew what the interim positions were about … it would be reassuring to them around budgeting and things they expressed concerns about."

Greene was persuaded that Burruto's experience provides some unique perspectives.

"I know from being on the [superintendent] search committee and what we got for applications, only two of those were sitting superintendents," Lanesborough's Regina DiLego said. "It might be an interesting opportunity to see what a non-sitting superintendent can bring to the table.

"It's a fresh approach — even just to have him come in and interview."

After current Superintendent Rose Ellis informed the districts she plans to retire early rather than serving the remainder of a contract that runs through June, the school committees decided to go full speed ahead with a search for a permanent replacement. But after not being satisfied with the number of applications it received this fall, the Tri-District committees (Mount Greylock and SU71) decided to reopen the search for a permanent successor in the spring.

Laneborough's Sheila Hebert, who serves with Greene on the Mount Greylock School Committee, joined DiLego, the chairman of the Lanesborough School Committee, in advocating for more interviews for the interim job.

"I think it would be good to look at all three," Hebert said. "It will be a good experience — good for us to see what we have out there. Even when we go to a full superintendent search in the spring, we may not get all strong candidates.

"Even if someone comes in and knows how to do superintendency, there's still some training because they don't know the schools."

Williamstown School Committee Chairwoman Valerie Hall said she was concerned that bringing in three candidates for interviews might make it easier for the school committees to split and, thus, delay the process as the Tri-District faces a looming deadline to find Ellis' replacement.

Greene said that was less of a concern for her, drawing an analogy to Mount Greylock's recently completed search for an Owner's Project Manager for the district's building project.

"When we did the OPM search, we had three strong candidates," Hall said. "They scored very close in the preliminary sessions. And then even in the public interviews, they weren't far apart. Yet a decision was made.

"It wasn't unanimous, but everyone was pleased with the outcome."

In addition to interviewing and selecting an interim superintendent at next week's meeting, the Tri-District representatives will be asked to consider hiring a recruitment consultant for the spring's renewed superintendent search. The Superintendent Search Committee recommended engaging a head-hunter when it rejected the initial applicant pool, and the Administrative Review Subcommittee on Thursday decided to put the recruiter question on the agenda for next week.

Greene volunteered to contact the executive director of the Marlborough, Mass.-based New England School Development Council to get a ballpark estimate of what NESDEC might charge for such consultant work. NESDEC on its website lists dozens of completed executive searches, including the one that led to the Lenox School District hiring recently retired Superintendent Edward Costa.

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