Haverhill

Haverhill's almost-superintendent in trouble again

City's almost-superintendent leaves job amid allegations

By Shawn Regan
sregan@eagletribune.com
Published: October 24, 2008

HAVERHILL — He is the man the School Committee wanted to lead Haverhill's school district, until the members found out he left out key information on his resume. And now he is trouble again.

The School Committee in October 2005 voted 4-3 to offer John Metallo, at the time the superintendent of a small school district in upstate New York, Haverhill's school superintendent job.

City lawyers were finalizing a contract with Metallo when Mayor James Fiorentini and The Eagle-Tribune were tipped off by anonymous callers that Metallo did not include on his resume a troubled year he spent in 2001 as principal of another New York public high school. A few months after Metallo's controversial withdrawal from consideration here, he accepted a job as principal of Torrington High School in Connecticut.

He resigned from that job a month ago, amid of flurry of accusations he inflated class size numbers to justify higher expenditures, applied for jobs using his school e-mail, and inappropriately contacted School Committee members to complain about budget cuts.

Documents released by Torrington school officials show Metallo was about to be fired when he resigned, according to reports in The Republican-American newspaper of Waterbury. E-mails obtained by that newspaper revealed a long-running feud between Metallo and Torrington Superintendent Susan O'Brien, the newspaper reported.

O'Brien has also accused of Metallo of verbally abusing several female colleagues and scheduling courses with no students to enhance the retirement benefits of another teacher.

The Torrington school board is scheduled to hear Metallo's side of the story Oct. 29 behind closed doors.

Last week, the Republican-American reported O'Brien e-mailed teachers and secretaries in the district newspaper articles about Metallo's controversial education career in New York, urging them "Read the Press ... form your own opinion."

New York newspapers have also covered Metallo's recent problems in Connecticut, to update their readers on what happened to him after he left his former job as superintendent in Middleburgh, a position he held from 2002 to 2005.

Before applying for the Haverhill superintendency, Metallo left Middleburgh, a central school district serving several communities just west of Albany, with lifetime family medical benefits and a $31,750 payout for unused sick and vacation time.

That struck a nerve with local watchdogs, including Adam Binder, a former school board member, according to a Republican-American report.

"He was given a golden parachute," Binder told the Republican-American. "Six of us former board members went down and we raised hell with them, quite frankly."

Binder and a group of taxpayers presented the school board with allegations that Metallo improperly used a school district vehicle, taught coaching classes in school facilities and pocketed the proceeds, and used e-mail to conduct education business with board members outside of public meetings, in violation of Freedom of Information laws, the Republican-American reported.

However, no official investigation or allegation of wrongdoing was levied against Metallo in Middleburgh, according to Binder and local press reports.

Despite the issues with his resume and all the media attention Metallo received at his various prior jobs, his candidacy for the Haverhill superintendency was cleared and recommended by a private consultant firm, Future Management Systems of Beverly. Haverhill paid that company $10,000 to investigate the backgrounds of all the candidates.

After the Eagle-Tribune published a story in October 2005 exposing Metallo's omissions on his resume, Fiorentini and other School Committee members said they were "extremely disappointed" that their search consultant firm did not discover the information on its own and before the committee had eliminated all the other candidates.

Fiorentini, who was provided with copies of the stories on the Torrington scandal, declined to comment yesterday.

Current Superintendent Raleigh Buchanan, who was superintendent in Seekonk at the time, was eventually chosen for the job here.