Two school committees representing Williamstown and Lanesborough schools approved a contract with an interim superintendent through June 19.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Williamstown and Lanesborough public schools have an interim superintendent to replace retiring Superintendent Rose Ellis.

But the expected final decision did not come without a little bit of drama.

Committee members of the Mount Greylock Regional School District and Superintendency Union 71, which share central administration, met on Friday at the junior-senior high school to finalize the contract with Gordon Noseworthy.

After a brief executive session to discuss terms of the agreement, the committees reconvened in open session to vote approval of the contract.

The four Mount Greylock Regional School Committee members in attendance voted in favor.

Just three of the four SU71 members followed suit.

A fourth, Lanesborough School Committee member Robert Barton, initially abstained from the vote.

But after SU71 Chairwoman Valerie Hall explained that all four members of the six-person panel at the meeting needed to approve the contract, Barton said he would change his vote to, "Aye."

"I was not connected to the search process," Barton said after the meeting, explaining his initial intention to abstain from the vote. "I wanted to be sure we looked at other ways of filling the superintendent position."

Barton has been pressing throughout the year for Lanesborough to break away from SU71, under which it shares central administration with Williamstown Elementary School. SU71 then partners with Mount Greylock under what is referred to as the" Tri-District."

Barton said he changed his vote because the three districts have no other viable option for superintendency services after Ellis retires at the end of the month.

"We need a superintendent," he said. "We have three weeks to go. We've kind of painted ourselves into a corner."

Barton and Lanesborough committee member James Moriarty skipped the Nov. 21 meeting at which seven members of the Mount Greylock committee and four members of the SU71 committee interviewed three finalists and selected Noseworthy, a Northampton resident and former superintendent in Pittsfield. Neither Barton nor Moriarty attended a regularly scheduled SU71 meeting on Oct. 7.

On Friday, the Tri-District agreed to pay Noseworthy $625 per day for each day he works between Jan. 5, 2015, and June 19, 2015. "Noseworthy will work on student attendance days," the contract reads in part.

If Mount Greylock and SU71 hire a permanent superintendent with a start date before June 19, it has the option to terminate the contract with Noseworthy on a date agreed upon by the parties.

That search for a permanent superintendent received a boost on Friday when the Tri-District committees voted unanimously to accept a gift of up to $20,000 to pay for an outside consultant to help find Ellis' replacement.

The districts are considering engaging the services of the New England School Development Council to help recruit a new superintendent.

SU71 Committee member Robert Barton initially abstained from voting on the interim superintendent contract, saying he wanted to be sure other options had been considered.

A member of the Jeffrey family offered to fund that search up to $20,000, Mount Greylock School Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Greene announced on Friday.

"Williams College was able to support the previous superintendent search and was willing to fund a portion [of the current search]," Greene said. "Now they have a donor willing to fund all the expense. Clearly, there is an investment on the part of the college and the donor to have a successful search."

The Jeffrey family of Columbus, Ohio, which includes a number of Williams alumni, created what has become the Williams Fund for Mount Greylock in 2012.

Barton questioned whether the committees still planned to use Noseworthy as a resource for the permanent superintendent search. Noseworthy brings experience in such searches from his past tenures as an interim superintendent.

"Is Dr. Noseworthy still potentially going to lead the search?" Barton asked.

Greene said she also has been thinking about how the interim superintendent could work with the recruiters at NESDEC.

"I did talk to NESDEC about it," she said. "They were happy to hear we were hiring Dr. Noseworthy. They've worked with him and had good experiences working with him on searches.

"I think it will go more smoothly with Dr. Noseworthy at the helm."

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