Superintendent to lead school district in Vermont-New Hampshire

Superintendent Jay Badams, the architect of the 11,500-student Erie School District's financial recovery plan, is taking a job leading a 2,000-student school district that serves two towns in New England.

Badams has accepted the superintendent's post for what is known as School Administrative Unit 70, which runs the public schools in Hanover, New Hampshire, and Norwich, Vermont. The two sit across from each other along the Connecticut River and are near Dartmouth College.

The SAU 70 board on Tuesday night voted to offer Badams the job, which starts July 1, the board said in a statement. Badams said he agreed to take the position, and that he will remain until July 1 at the Erie School District, which he has led since the spring of 2010.

Badams, 51, said one reason he decided to take the new job is the stress over the Erie School District's precarious financial situation.

"This effort to secure the district's finances has been draining. It has been long," Badams said. "Being able to go to such a beautiful place and still do the work I love was really appealing."

Badams said he and his wife also had always planned to retire to Vermont, where he worked in the early 1990s as an account manager in the Eastman Kodak Corp.'s health sciences division, which included imaging. One of his biggest clients was Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.

Badams said the timing for a move is also ideal because his youngest child, Jack, 14, an eighth-grader at Erie's Roosevelt Middle School, is going into high school in the fall. Badams said he and his wife, Tiffany, would not have moved if their son already was in high school.

"There was a very limited window for us to investigate this," Badams said. "Everything sort of lined up."

The SAU 70 has a four schools — a high school, a middle school and two elementary schools. The Erie School District has 18 schools — four high schools, two middle schools and 12 elementary schools.

Terms of the new job were not disclosed. The SAU 70 board said it will now negotiate a contract with Badams, though Badams has said he expects to make less than his $185,000-a-year salary with the Erie School District. Badams had his salary frozen in 2013 because of the Erie School District's budget problems.

The SAU 70 job is the second for which Badams applied in New England. The other superintendent's post, for the Essex Westford School District, near Burlington, Vermont, went to another finalist, after Badams withdrew his name, the school board for that school district said. Badams had his final interview for the SAU 70 job on Friday and his final interview for the Essex Westford School District job on Thursday.

Badams' decision to take the new job comes as the Erie School District is in what he has described as one of the most pivotal moments in its history. The district, through a state-mandated financial plan, has asked Harrisburg for $31.8 million in additional state funding to keep the district solvent and to improve its academic programs.

Without more state money, Badams has said, the district will have to slash programs and raise taxes to eliminate a projected budget deficit of $10.1 million in 2017-18. Badams has also raised the possibility of the district closing its four high schools, and sending those students to other public school districts in Erie County, if the district fails to reach financial stability by 2018-19.

Though the Erie School District's budget woes have worsened in the past several years, Badams has been dealing with financial problems starting when he was the district's assistant superintendent for a year, in 2009. When he became superintendent a year later, Badams inherited a $26 million deficit from his predecessor, James Barker.

Badams over the years has become a vocal advocate for changing the state's funding system for education, in which urban school districts such as Erie's typically get less money, per student, than more affluent suburban school districts.

Badams said the SAU 70 is financially stable, which he said will allow him to dedicate much of his time to curriculum and other concerns directly related to the classroom.

"I got into education because I am an educator," Badams said. "I always wanted to get deeply involved in the curriculum. In all honesty, I have not been able to focus on that since 2009."

Badams also said he "is not trying to escape from Erie," and that he will spend the rest of his time at the Erie School District pushing for more state funding. The district on Dec. 6 submitted its financial plan to the state Department of Education, which is to finish its review by Jan. 27. Badams hopes Gov. Tom Wolf considers the district's plan when Wolf releases his preliminary 2017-18 budget in February.

"I do have a sense that there is unfinished work," Badams said. "We are going to continue to make sure we set the stage for our short- and long-term financial health."

Badams said he is confident that his top staff will be able to carry out his goals, and achieve stability for the district, once he leaves. Erie School Board President Frank Petrungar Jr., who will lead the board as it picks Badams' successor, has also expressed confidence in the staff Badams has assembled.

"I feel like I can leave with a clear conscience because of the people we have in those key roles," Badams said. "There is a group in charge who cares deeply."

Badams, a native of Rochester, New York, has a bachelor’s degree from Allegheny College, a master’s degree from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania and a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. He worked in Vermont as an account manager for the Rochester-based Kodak in 1994, before he started his career in education at the Erie School District in 1997. Badams has spent his entire education career at the Erie School District except when he was superintendent at the Wattsburg Area School District from September 2007 to January 2009.

Badams' daughter, Emma, 19, is a sophomore at Green Mountain College, in Poultney, Vermont, near the New York state line.

Badams said he decided to apply for the job openings after visiting his daughter in Vermont in September. Badams and his wife also have two sons, Jamie, and Matt, who are in their early 20s. Badams said his recent visits to Vermont rekindled his desire to work there one day.

"For me, professionally right now, I feel ready for a change," he said.

Ed Palattella can be reached at 870-1813 or by email. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNpalattella.