Highsmith Named New Hamden Schools Chief

Hamden has selected an internal hire with New Haven roots to serve as the town’s next superintendent of schools. 

Gary Highsmith, Hamden schools’ Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources and Administration, will serve as the district’s top educational leader following a unanimous Monday vote — with one abstention — by the town’s Board of Education.

He’ll start the job on Sept. 1, filling a spot left empty by Superintendent Jody Goeler, who has since stayed on in an interim capacity after announcing his retirement back in February.

With Highsmith’s promotion and the departure of Hamden’s assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction Chris Melillo from the district to take on the title of superintendent in Newtown, the town now has two vacant assistant superintendent positions. Highsmith told the Independent he has a plan to ​“reorganize” that administrative layout in order to ​“shift money towards teaching and learning.” He will lead conversations on that topic in a July personnel committee meeting, he said.

Highsmith will oversee the education of 5,500 students spread across more than ten schools while maintaining a focus on equity, ​“staying systematic” when introducing student interventions, supporting students’ social emotional needs, funneling money directly into classrooms, and reintroducing rigor after years of pandemic-induced, extra ​“grace,” he said.

Highsmith will be Hamden’s first Black superintendent.

Born and raised in New Haven’s Hill neighborhood, Highsmith worked as the principal of New Haven’s Beecher Elementary School before becoming principal of Hamden High and working his way up to central office.

Highsmith’s two daughters, along with many family members, longtime mentors and colleagues gathered inside the Board of Education building Monday night to celebrate his career advancement.

In a speech following the vote, Highsmith thanked his family and past instructors for teaching him the value of an education — and inspiring him to lead an entire district’s public education system.

In particular, he named his ninth grade ​“advanced social studies teacher” Burt Saxon at Hillhouse High School as a key figure. ​“He was the only teacher to give me and F. And I deserved it. That F became an A the next semester.”

As a 13-year-old who had just lost his mother, Highsmith said, he felt Saxon ​“understood my circumstances but still held me up to my potential.”

Saxon, in turn, said that Highsmith was one of the top students whose lives he was grateful to have been able to touch during his time as a teacher — joining the company of people like U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes, who grew up in Waterbury. 

Board of Education members likewise heaped praise onto Highsmith.

“I first met Gary when he was my principal in sophomore year of high school,” said BOE member Walter Morton. ​“After a lot of us graduated, Gary still stayed very much involved… I considered him a mentor, a big brother. And I took some style points” from him, he concluded.

“It’s different,” David Asberry said of Highsmith’s leadership, noting that during candidate interviews Highsmith pledged to be ​“everywhere” in the community, including ​“in front of Stop and Shop on a day off” to meet local families where they already are.

“It’s about individuals doing something different, not the same old,” Asberry said of choosing Highsmith.

Even as those present at the Putnam Avenue Board of Education offices expressed unanimous excitement about Highsmith’s promotion, many cited concerns with the process of how the Board of Education came to that decision. 

“It’s a big day for Hamden,” BOE member Mariam Khan said. 

“But to me, this decision was much bigger than choosing a superintendent … it was about making avenues for community engagement and making a major decision as a board.”

“I believe parents and families deserve to know,” she said, about more facets of the selection process. Other than an agenda posted on Hamden’s BOE website on a Friday afternoon following the Monday meeting, the community wasn’t notified that a special BOE meeting would be taking place Monday and no public input was taken during the meeting. ​“I just wish the community was here in a way where we could celebrate today. I will be abstaining from the vote for those reasons.”

The BOE’s attorneys were present in the corner of the packed room, prepared to provide a statement concerning the board’s decision to keep the superintendent selection process confidential.

Attorney Tom Mooney said that the personnel search committee — in this case, the Board of Education, which appointed itself to perform a nation-wide search for possible candidates in early 2022 — was legally allowed to convene confidentially without publicly posting its meeting times. He said that ​“it’s typical and important that selection processes be conducted in a confidential manner, because the opportunity to attract candidates will be affect by whether people can apply for the job in a confidential manner without necessarily signaling to their employer that they’re considering leaving.”

In other words, Mooney said, any people seeking the superintendent job had the right to maintain privacy through the interview process so that the board could ensure they were interviewing as many top-notch candidates as possible.

This reporter asked Board of Education Chair Melissa Kaplan how many individuals the BOE had actually interviewed for the position.

Kaplan did not answer directly. She said: ​“We made very clear we were going through the process with internal candidates before we got to external candidates.” 

For an alternative peek into how other districts have gone about selecting superintendents, check out this article from 2017. That’s the year Highsmith ran for the role of superintendent in New Haven. He competed with two other top picks for the job by answering questions from hundreds of community members during a public forum, after which audience members cast their own votes as to which candidate they preferred.

“This is without a doubt the board’s most important responsibility,” Kaplan stated. ​“It wasn’t as if we were withholding information from the public — it was not an act of secrecy and willful denial of transparency.”

Rather, she argued, the board teamed up with consultants to determine what was essential to ​“stakeholders” before formulating interview questions and search criteria. The board reaped feedback from roughly 350 people out of thousands that they said they hoped to represent. Read about the survey and focus groups that made up that process as well as their outcomes here.

Upcoming sophomore Perjah Delgado pointed out that fewer than 30 students’ opinions were captured through the consultants’ research. ​“That focus-group-survey-thingy-whatever is not an accurate representation of the student body,” she said. ​“If the Board of Education truly valued the voice of students, the students would know it.

“I’ve spoken to students and alumni, and most of them didn’t even known the superintendent was retiring let alone that a new superintendent would be chosen tonight,” she said.

Turning to Highsmith, she smiled: ​“I’m actually very happy you’re superintendent.”

She faced the BOE again: ​“The final result is great, but the process matters.”