TUPPER LAKE — The search for Tupper Lake Central School District’s next superintendent is hitting a pivotal stage today, as the three finalist candidates go through extensive interviews with the school board and a group of residents before the board makes a decision.

Aditya (Joe) Dhara of Fayetteville, Jared Taft of Getzville and Jaycee Welsh of La Fargeville are all in the running. Profiles of the three candidates can be found at https://tinyurl.com/5ysf7wtj and in the May 30 edition of the Enterprise.

The process of choosing a new superintendent has now gotten more complicated after a school board meeting on Monday resulted in board member Korey Kenniston resigning, saying he “cannot endorse any of the three candidates.” A parent called for a public forum with the candidates, and a candidate for the position who did not make the final three — who is also Kenniston’s father — criticized the school board for a variety of reasons.

Kenniston said it was a hard decision to leave the board, but he does not believe the three candidates have the knowledge or skills he thinks the district needs to improve, and he did not want his name associated with that. He said he hopes the district is in a good place five years from now, but he does not believe that the three candidates could bring it there.

TLCSD board President Jane Whitmore and Franklin-Essex-Hamilton BOCES District Superintendent Dale Breault, who is facilitating the search for a new superintendent, said they have faith in the three finalists, who will be vetted by a small group of residents in the meetings today.

Whitmore said the board appointed Joshua Tremblay to fill Kenniston’s vacant seat on the board in an executive session after his resignation on Monday. Tremblay, who has three children in TLCSD and is a teacher in the Long Lake Central School District, will serve out the final year of the position’s term. If he desires to stay on the board at that time, he will have to run for election next year.

Whitmore said Tremblay was one of the first to express interest in being a stakeholder in the superintendent process.

“Over the years he has reached out with solid questions about our district,” she said.

Current TLCSD Superintendent Russell Bartlett plans to retire at the end of the school year after four years in the position and 30 years total at TLCSD.

The three candidates will be running a gauntlet of interviews today, first another one with the school board, and then three more with three different stakeholder groups. Each group will include a representative from the district’s teaching staff, non-teaching staff and administration, as well as a community/parent representative and a student representative.

“We’ve got quite a cross-section of people,” Whitmore said.

These stakeholders will report their interviews back to the board.

Whitmore said they plan to take a “deep dive” into fiscal responsibility and budgeting — a key issue the district is facing, with a tough financial outlook and several close votes on passing school budgets. She said members of the public on Monday brought up some questions the board had addressed already with the candidates, some which they could expand on, and some good new topics.

Kenniston said the budget is a huge issue.

“We’re in a hole and the hole just keeps getting bigger,” he said, adding that he’s not confident any of the candidates can stop that.

The district’s budget for 2024-25 passed a public vote last month by a slim margin, with 55% of the vote. Voters chose to accept higher taxes for fewer services with the concern that shooting down the budget would cause even more cuts to the district’s services.

The district is cutting around 16 positions — mostly temporary positions funded through pandemic-era federal aid — as those federal funds run out, inflation drives up prices and the state reduces its contribution to public schools, with further cuts expected in the future.

Schools around the state are struggling financially, and Tupper Lake has long had a harder time financially, much earlier than other districts.

At a public hearing on the budget last month, several members of the public spoke about how inflation and rising taxes were impacting them and voiced concerns about their ability to afford owning their homes in the future.

Kenniston said he wanted to see a local be among the final three candidates. Who better than a Tupper Laker to lead the Tupper Lake district through hard times, he said. His father and another local candidate did not advance to that round.

He said these locals deserved to get in front of stakeholder groups with their message.

“It’s not just because he’s my father. If I didn’t think he was the best candidate, I would have told him not even to apply,” Kenniston said.

He said he felt misled or misinformed about the previous employment backgrounds of some candidates and said one, as a current principal, does not have as much budgeting experience as a person with superintendent experience would.

Kenniston’s father, Mike, had been interviewed in the first round of seven from the 13 applicants, but was not selected to be part of the second round of three. Mike Kenniston felt he was never seriously considered as a candidate, and believes he has solutions the district direly needs. On Monday, he criticized district leadership over fiscal responsibility, student achievement, staff morale and school culture.

He pointed out that TLCSD ranks 642 out of 661 districts in New York for student achievement in grades three through eight in English Language Arts. Mike Kenniston said the poor student achievement is the fault of the district’s leadership — the board leadership and the superintendent.

“Teachers are not the problem here,” he told the Enterprise, adding that he believes Tupper Lake kids deserve better than this.

He alleged that district leadership “fell asleep at the wheel” and “blamed it on COVID.”

District leaders have said the pandemic-era aid lifted TLCSD out of a financial and educational hole it was in to bring it to a level playing field with other districts. But with that money running out, and the state cutting back its aid, it is sinking back to where it had been before the pandemic funding boost.

On Monday, parent Darcy Varden called for the district to hold a public forum with the candidates, so the public could get to know them better.

Whitmore said she’s been involved in three TLCSD superintendent searches and they’ve never had a public forum with the candidates before. She’s open to it, she said, but she’s not convinced there’s actually a strong public desire for one.

She said they only got around a dozen applicants to participate in the stakeholder groups and none were denied. The meeting on Monday night was attended by a handful of members of the public. She said some forums are well attended, some are not and they don’t see a strong desire for one now.

Some members of the public said the low stakeholder applicant turnout was because it was not advertised well, pointing out that many people did not see it on social media. The Enterprise wrote two articles with information about the call for applicants, the Tupper Lake Free Press ran press releases from BOCES and notifications were put out online.

The candidate interviews are expected to go late into Thursday night. At that point, Whitmore said the board might make one candidate an offer, choose to deliberate more or search further for more candidates.

FEH BOCES Public Information Specialist Jess Collier said BOCES Superintendent Breault has been part of superintendent searches in the past where boards were not confident in their options and chose to continue their search, expanding the call for candidates.

“(Breault) feels confident that any of these candidates would be a good fit for the district,” Collier said. “But if the district chooses to do something like that he is willing and will do whatever they want.”

Whitmore said she hopes to wrap up the search soon, because July 1 marks the start of the new school fiscal year.

“But we’re not going to rush it, either,” she said. “If we’re not satisfied, then we’ll keep looking.”