Two members of the Sudbury School Committee will pick the people who screen candidates for the next superintendent. Here is how, in the Committee’s own words.

The Sudbury School Committee is looking for a superintendent. It has hired a search firm and is now assembling a screening committee – a group of 13 to 17 community members, parents, staff and officials who will review applications, interview candidates and recommend finalists to the Committee. The School Committee, which has five elected members, makes the final hire. But the screening committee decides which candidates the Committee ever sees.

The district calls the process “thoughtful and transparent.”[1] If you want to serve on the screening committee, the application form is here. It closes at 5:00 PM this Monday, October 19. Paper copies are at the Town Clerk’s Office, the Park & Rec Department, the Goodnow Library and the Senior Center. The Committee meets at 7:00 PM the same evening, with “Superintendent Search Update (Discussion/Action)” on the agenda.[2]

Who picks the screening committee. On September 28 Chair Jessica McCready described how members would be chosen. Would the full five-member Committee pick them? “No, that is not done in the full meeting. It’s done by the subgroup, the working group” (1:43:25). The working group is two Committee members – McCready and Betsy Sues – plus Carol Cavanaugh, the interim assistant superintendent and a district administrator, not an elected official.

Member Ellen Lederer-DeFrancesco asked who decides if a hundred parents apply. McCready: “Betsy and I would decide, and then work with Carol to communicate” (1:44:16). The slate goes “back to the full committee for approval. Not the names, but the, or maybe the names, I can’t remember” (1:42:07).

On October 2 the working group met to finalize the application form. Both meetings were posted and recorded. McCready: “Does the full committee need to see the survey?” (0:26:28) “No, the full committee does not.” Final sign-off on the form went to Sues alone: “if you send it to Betsy, I’m comfortable with that” (0:26:55).

The screening committee will work behind closed doors. Its interviews will be held in person, “because it’s technically executive session” (0:21:01). The draft charge reads: “No member of the Screening Committee will comment on any aspect of the process to anyone, including employees, the public or the media.”[11] The working group that drafted the charge will sit on the committee it governs.

How McCready and Sues got those seats. On September 14, after voting to hire the search firm, the Committee turned to choose its own two seats on the screening committee. McCready proposed herself and Lederer-DeFrancesco – the two members who had served on the earlier search subcommittee (2:26:21). Lederer-DeFrancesco, a teacher, said she ends her school day at 3:50 and can’t take a lunch hour for an interview, but “as long as it can fit around that, I am more than willing and excited to help.”

Committee member Julie Durgin-Sicree raised a concern: “I’m just thinking of the screenings that generally would happen during business hours” (2:27:14). “So you’d have basically from like 4 to 5” (2:27:44). McCready then drew the conclusion: “it probably would be during school hours. So that might preclude Ellen from doing it. Does anyone else want to volunteer?” (2:28:05).

Durgin-Sicree and Sues both volunteered. Committee member Karyn Jones advocated for Sues: “I love Ellen because she’s a teacher… but I do like how Betsy has a very strong financial background.” Buck Creel, the procurement official who had written the search-firm RFP and is not a Committee member, pushed back: “the financial part I don’t think is as important” (2:28:43). The resulting motion named McCready and Sues (2:29:59), and it passed.

Two and a half weeks later, on October 2, the working group – now McCready and Sues – set the screening committee’s schedule to evenings: “typically between 6 and 9 p.m.,” and “6 to 9 p.m. I think is probably more doable than during the day” (0:20:04). The published form tells applicants to expect “evenings and potentially Saturdays.”[6]

The interviews moved to the evening. The seat did not.

The $24,000 search firm. In August the Committee issued an RFP to four search firms – MASC, NESDEC, HYA and the Collins Center at UMass Boston – and all four responded.[3] Four people evaluated the proposals: McCready, Lederer-DeFrancesco, Creel and Cavanaugh. The memo recommending Collins, at a fixed fee of $24,000, told the full Committee that two firms “scored higher” and that “it became apparent that one firm provided some advantages.”[4] It gave no scores, no split and, no competing price. On September 14, Cavanaugh explained: “between Collins Center and NSDEC, I was a one point difference” (2:21:21). Then the division among evaluators: “So it was Collins, Collins, [NESDEC], [NESDEC].” Jones: “I thought in the packet it would have said like two for [NESDEC], two for Collins.” Cavanaugh: “we didn’t vote, per se. We just dialogued for about 40 minutes on a Zoom call” (2:22:17).

Two Committee members abstained on the Collins vote, questioning how the evaluation committee had been established. Sues: “I didn’t recall like firmly settling on this evaluation committee… should have been more of like a committee-led activity” (2:18:51). Jones: “I also don’t remember voting” (2:20:18). But the August 17 minutes show that Sues moved to establish the evaluation committee, Jones seconded the motion, and it passed 5-0 (3:17:12).[5] Sues then moved to approve Collins – and abstained on her own motion: “I don’t know or think that I would have come to a different decision, but I’m personally, I’ll be in the abstain” (2:24:54). Collins was approved 3-0-2 (2:26:21).

Who gets to apply. The screening committee application form has categories for parents, school employees, town officials and members of district advisory groups. Residents with no current connection to the schools – no child enrolled, no district job – get one category: “Community Member at Large.”[7] The working group expects about one person in that seat. In their words: “you’re really only looking for one… a member at large… I guess everyone else really does have some connection to the school” (0:25:30).

How do you reach residents outside the school community? The working group discussed it: “I don’t know how we can get this out to the community” (0:25:13). Word of mouth – “if Joe at the grocery store is like, oh, they’re talking about hiring a new superintendent” (0:25:40). The district emailed the form to the SPS family list on October 7 and added a reminder on October 15, which noted that paper copies are available at four town buildings. On September 28 Creel had made the case for non-school residents: “the Jerry Maguire question, show me the money… Having taxpayers is tremendous” (1:46:33).

The calendar. The working group planned to open the form October 5 and close it October 15 – ten days over a holiday weekend (0:27:36). The Collins Center consultants pushed back: “you’ve got a holiday weekend in there… I just think that you’re going to be criticized” (0:28:48). They recommended extending the deadline to October 19 and moving the screening-committee slate vote to October 26 (0:29:36). The working group agreed (0:42:35).

The form went out October 7 – two days late – and closes October 19 at 5:00 PM.[8] The October 19 agenda has the search listed for “Discussion/Action” at a 7:00 PM meeting. The next scheduled meeting is November 2. No October 26 meeting has been posted.[9]

The search itself has slipped. The original RFP anticipated screening in late October and an appointment by January 15, 2027.[10] On October 2 the Collins consultants put screening interviews in December. The form tells applicants to expect “November and December.”

The search follows the separation of former Superintendent Brad Crozier, which has cost the district $192,171 so far. The Collins Center’s $24,000 fee is the latest line on that tab.

No screening-committee member has been chosen yet. When they are, McCready and Sues – the two members who read every application and who will sit on the screening committee themselves – will have picked the people who decide which candidates the public ever sees. Under the draft charge, none of them will be allowed to discuss the process with anyone outside the committee.

The district calls this “important work.” The October 15 reminder calls the application form “this survey.” The form closes at 5:00 PM Monday. The Committee meets at 7:00.

Sources

1. Sudbury Public Schools, “Superintendent Screening Committee Interest Form” email to the district community, Oct. 7, 2026 (“a thoughtful and transparent search process”), repeated in the Oct. 15 reminder; the form itself says “a thoughtful, transparent search process consistent with best practices.” ↩
2. Sudbury School Committee, agenda for the Oct. 19, 2026 meeting (emailed Oct. 15, 2026). ↩
3. Sudbury Public Schools, RFP 27-001, superintendent search consultant services, issued Aug. 19, 2026 under M.G.L. c. 30B. In the Sept. 14, 2026 School Committee packet. ↩
4. Memorandum from Buck Creel, Sept. 9, 2026, and search-firm selection memo. In the Sept. 14, 2026 School Committee packet. ↩
5. Sudbury School Committee, minutes of the Aug. 17, 2026 meeting. ↩
6. Sudbury Public Schools, Superintendent Search Screening Committee interest form (Google Form), as published. ↩
7. Interest form, “Community Member at Large” category. ↩
8. Interest form, deadline text; district distribution, Oct. 7, 2026. ↩
9. Agenda for the Oct. 19, 2026 meeting, item “Superintendent Search Update (Discussion/Action)” and footer. ↩
10. RFP 27-001, timeline. In the Sept. 14, 2026 School Committee packet. ↩
11. Draft Superintendent Search Screening Committee Charge, ¶7. In the Sept. 28, 2026 School Committee packet. ↩
12. Sudbury Public Schools, reminder about the screening-committee form, Oct. 15, 2026. ↩