Northampton superintendent interviews slated for Monday, Tuesday

NORTHAMPTON — The School Committee will interview four superintendent finalists Monday and Tuesday in an effort to decide who it deems the best fit to take the helm of Northampton Public Schools.

The four candidates — Ivelise Velasquez, Thomas Danehy, Annie Azarloza and Bethany Silver — were selected from an initial 20 candidates reviewed by the Preliminary Superintendent Search Committee over the course of about eight weeks.

The School Committee is expected to review the candidates and select the district’s next superintendent to replace Portia Bonner at a special meeting the following Thursday, April 30.

“For the past two months, the preliminary search committee has been meeting; we’ve gone through more than 20 applications, narrowed it down to eight semi-finalists that we brought in for interviews,” School Committee member Renika Montgomery-Tamakloe said before announcing the four finalists at the committee’s April 9 meeting.

The School Committee will interview Danehy and Velasquez on Monday, followed by Azarloza and Silver on Tuesday. Both meetings are hybrid and start at 6:30 p.m. in the community room at JFK Middle School.

Ivelise Velasquez

Velasquez currently serves as deputy superintendent of the Consolidated School District in New Britain, Connecticut, a position she has held since 2022.

There, her resume states, Velasquez led “comprehensive academic strategy implementation,” which she said resulted in three consecutive years of increased performance on state assessments, ranging from 2 to 10 percentage points per
school. She also wrote that she developed “tiered intervention systems” to support students in need without unnecessary special education referrals.

Velasquez also worked as the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, where she reportedly secured the district more than $2 million in federal grant funds to establish a manufacturing career pathway at the high school, and deputy superintendent at New Haven Public Schools.

In addition to her more recent experience, Velasquez has held more than seven other education positions, including serving as New London Public Schools’ chief academic officer and district supervisor of professional development and career management.

Thomas Danehy

Danehy serves as executive director of the nonprofit Area Cooperative Education Services (ACES) in New Haven, a role that he has filled for roughly 12 of the 35 years he spent working in education.

“With a talent for strategic planning and stakeholder relations, I excel in fostering community engagement and driving innovation,” Danehy wrote in his resume summary. “My experience in fiscal management, team leadership and relations with school board members, make me well-suited to share my experiences with upcoming educators.”

Before his work with ACES, Danehy worked as the Winchester, Connecticut Public Schools’ Superintendent of Schools, Executive Director of Human Capital Development at Stamford Public Schools, and six other positions related to educational leadership.

In 2024, Danehy served as president of the Association of Education Service Agencies (AESA), an organization that aims to feed the needs of educational service centers nationwide.

Annie Azarloza

Azarloza serves as interim superintendent of the Stark, Stratford and Northumberland School District in New Hampshire amid what she refered to in her resume as a “period of fiscal constraint and organizational transition.”

In a summary note of her resume, Azarloza touts her commitment to “fostering a sense of belonging” in her schools by “promoting equity” and “inspiring leaders and staff by building their capacity.”

“By creating a supportive and welcoming environment, we can empower students, teachers and staff to thrive and succeed,” she wrote. “Through the implementation of data-driven strategies and collaboration with various stakeholders, I have been able to make meaningful progress in narrowing opportunity gaps and creating a more equitable learning environment for all.”

Beginning her 21-year career in education as a middle school social studies teacher at Good Shepard Catholic School in Miami in 2005, Azarloza has held more than 11 different roles in school districts, including serving as the superintendent of schools in the Rochester Public School District and interim executive director of Foxborough Regional Charter School.

Bethany Silver

Silver has served as assistant superintendent of the Bloomfield Public Schools in Connecticut since 2011.

“Creative and energized public educator and assistant superintendent with a career committed to helping educators become better consumers of data while collaborating with cross-functional teams of high-performing dedicated staff,” Silver wrote to describe herself. “Works with information and tools that allow transparency in the development, analysis and communication of a school’s accountability system.”

Silver, in her decades-long career in education, has served a variety of roles, primarily across the Connecticut school districts, including as the executive director of assessment, evaluation and research, deputy chief academic officer, research consultant and assistant director of research at Hartford Public Schools.

According to her resume, Silver began her roughly 26-year career at the local and state college level, working at University of Connecticut from 2000 until 2001 and again in 2015, Naugatuck Valley Community College between 1999 and 2000 and Manchester Community College for an unspecified time period.