By John Barrella

MIDDLEBOROUGH — The School Committee opens its Thursday meeting behind closed doors, and reopens it to a full plate: an empty seat at its own table, the first budget update of the new fiscal year, and a permanent superintendent search that has yet to formally begin.

The committee meets at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 27, in the Middleborough High School auditorium at 71 East Grove St. The posting was filed by Suzanne Elliott, central office assistant.

The first order of business after the call to order is a vote to enter executive session under Purpose 2 of the Open Meeting Law — strategy or negotiation sessions involving nonunion personnel — for what the agenda describes only as an “individual contract.” The agenda does not identify the employee or the position, and no supporting materials were posted with the notice. The committee is scheduled to return to public session immediately afterward.

A seat to fill

Under “Report from School Committee Members,” the agenda lists a School Committee vacancy alongside approval of retreat minutes, 2026-27 goals, and subcommittee assignments.

The committee’s roster has turned over substantially this year. Three newcomers — Leah Machado, Krysten Phillips, and Sean Mokeler — took the three-year seats in the April 4 town election, unseating incumbents Jessica Chartoff and Allin Frawley in a six-way race. Susan Pennini chairs the committee; Kimberly Redlon is vice chair. The district’s website currently lists seven members: Christopher Benson, Shannon Breen, Machado, Mokeler, Pennini, Phillips, and Redlon.

In Massachusetts towns, a vacancy on an elected school committee is generally filled by the remaining members of the committee and the Select Board meeting in joint convention, with the appointee serving until the next annual town election. The agenda does not state which seat is open, when it became vacant, or how the committee intends to proceed.* (see end of article for additional context from a related meeting)

The search that hasn’t started yet

The last item under committee reports is the superintendent search timeline — the thread running through the district’s entire year.

Dr. David L. Thomson began as interim superintendent July 1. According to the district, Thomson has more than 30 years in public education, including service as superintendent in Norwood, interim superintendent in Wilmington and Mashpee, assistant superintendent in the Blackstone-Millville Regional School District, and principal at Raynham Middle School and Qualters Middle School in Mansfield. He was named Massachusetts Middle School Principal of the Year in 2010 and holds a doctorate in educational leadership from Northeastern University.

The interim appointment was the committee’s answer to a timing problem it laid out publicly in April. Faced with a choice between an accelerated search that would seat a permanent superintendent by Aug. 1, 2026, and a one-year interim followed by a conventional fall search, the committee surveyed families, students, and staff and took the second path. Its own materials noted that Massachusetts districts typically post superintendent openings in September or October, and that the compressed option risked a smaller candidate pool and less time to vet finalists. The district said either route carried no added cost under its existing agreement with the Massachusetts Association of School Committees.

That timeline puts a permanent superintendent in place July 1, 2027, with the search launching in the early fall — which makes Thursday’s discussion the last scheduled checkpoint before the clock starts.

New faces, new handbooks

Thomson’s report opens with introductions of Patrick Lenz as principal of the Mary K. Goode Elementary School and Heather Geary as director of pupil personnel services.

Revisions to student handbooks follow, presented building by building: Middleborough High School by Andrew Dizel and Jeff Sylvia; John T. Nichols Jr. Middle School by Timothy McLaughlin; and Mary K. Goode, Henry B. Burkland, and the Memorial Early Childhood Center by Tracie Lord, Joshua Dyer, and Sarah Cameron. The agenda lists the presentations as revisions and updates; the specific changes were not posted in advance.

Student representatives Grace Lynch and Ian Pina-Doherty report earlier in the meeting, and public comment precedes all discussion items.

Budget update, after a hard year

The superintendent’s report closes with a budget update — the first of the new fiscal year, and the first since a spring that reshaped the town’s finances.

Interim Town Manager Joseph Perkins told the Select Board in March that Middleborough faced a potential $3.3 million shortfall, with every department exposed to reductions. The Annual Town Meeting was postponed from April to June 1 to give officials time to rebuild the spending plan. The revised fiscal 2027 budget came in at roughly $109 million. The school district had separately warned of a projected $2.2 million gap, with staffing and program impacts on the table.

The agenda gives no indication of what Thomson will report or whether new figures are attached.

Consent agenda

The committee will take up July 9 and July 23 minutes, approval of warrants, and a series of gifts and grants: a $5,800 early college planning grant, a $500 Cape Cod 5 mini-grant for a snack program, $500 from Muckey’s for the MHS Start Strong program, $151.34 from Shutterfly Lifetouch for the Nichols student body, $24.18 from Ohiopyle Prints to the high school, backpack donations from Ockers, and a $33,500 fiscal 2027 affiliate school health award.

The early college grant appears twice on the agenda — as item 7B, spelled SUMPAC, and again as item 7H, spelled SUMAC — both at $5,800. The state’s early college planning grant for fiscal 2027, administered through the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, closed to applications Aug. 7 and funds districts pursuing a Massachusetts Early College Designation with a higher-education partner.

Four votes

Four action items require votes:

An overnight field trip to Virginia Beach for the Middleborough High School music program.

An appointment to the board of directors of READS Collaborative, the public special education collaborative headquartered at 105 East Grove St. in Middleborough. READS serves students ages 3 to 22 with low-incidence disabilities across member districts in southeastern Massachusetts, operating a program for deaf and hard-of-hearing children and the READS Academy.

A memorandum of agreement covering cafeteria workers. Terms were not posted with the agenda.

And designation of the district’s MASC delegate. The Massachusetts Association of School Committees and the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents hold their annual joint conference Nov. 4-6 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Boston North Shore in Danvers — a new venue this year — where the delegate assembly votes on resolutions submitted by member districts.

Additional context related to how the School committee may proceed: The Selectboard agreed last week to allow the committee to decide if they want to wait until the April election or go with a joint appointment with the Selectboard.

Meetings are recorded and rebroadcast by Middleborough Educational Television.

Disclosure: John Barrella is an elected member of the Middleborough Finance Committee and a former chair. He does not speak for the committee, and the committee had no role in this reporting.