On Sept. 22, the Board of Education (BOE) announced the hiring of Dr. Craig Cooke as the district’s new permanent superintendent of schools, marking an end to the approximately four month long search process to replace Tom Scarice, who announced he would be taking another job last April.

At the regular BOE meeting, held in-person and with a little more pomp and circumstance due to the occasion, Chair Katie Stein and other members of the school community welcomed Cooke to Madison, where he will be taking the reins from Interim Superintendent of Schools Dr. JeanAnn Paddyfote on Dec. 7.

Cooke has served as the superintendent of Windsor Public Schools from 2014 until this year. Stein said that Cooke, a resident of Old Saybrook, “shares our love of the Connecticut shoreline.”

“He is calm, thoughtful, and humble, and his answers to some particularly thorny questions demonstrated an ability to resolve issues with utmost professionalism,” Stein said at the meeting.

Stein told The Source that Cooke was a unanimous selection out of 37 high-quality candidates. She cited his ability and track record in raising diverse voices to the forefront and bringing people together even around complex and emotionally charged issues, as well as his passion for education.

“I’m very excited to get started. I am excited to work on all the things that were talked about...There’s a lot of work ahead of us,” Cooke said. “I know that I have a great team.”

The ability to be a “convener”—someone who can give everyone a voice at the table—was one quality that Stein emphasized repeatedly, saying that recent and upcoming challenges will require that particular skillset, which is something Cooke will bring to the district.

“I think in all areas right now, there seems to be a lot of issues that really require somebody to be a convener, or somebody that will bring people together to really talk about the issues,” Stein said. “To have somebody that has experience and has been recognized as someone who brings people together to discuss all angles of an issue...so that we can make good decisions for our community, for our schools...I think that’s going to be really important for the future.”

Stein also emphasized the “rigorous process” the schools went through in selecting Cooke, including community input through focus groups and surveys. The BOE contracted executive hiring firm NESDEC in May to assist in the search.

“We really created our interviews around feedback we received” from the community, Stein told The Source. “Even though we were in this unprecedented time of not being able to meet in person with people, we were grateful for all the input that we got.”

One of the leaders of the BOE’s search committee, Vice Chair Kirk Barneby, stepped down from the BOE during the process after moving out of town, Stein said.

Windsor, while a similarly sized district to Madison, differs geographically and demographically. About 35 percent of families in the Windsor district are economically disadvantaged, according to U.S. News, compared to 4 percent in Madison. Windsor also has a majority non-White student body, while Madison is about 90 percent White.

Stein said that following the killing of George Floyd, she and other BOE members “heard loud and clear” from parents and other stakeholders that they wanted leadership that could speak on issues of diversity and had worked with diverse student populations.

“We can’t make Madison more diverse, but we can make sure that kids are prepared for a more diverse world,” Stein said. “[Cooke] set up a whole program around diversity in Windsor that he is really hoping to work with our board and our curriculum leaders to help kids have a broader sense...and perspective [in] our community.”

Cooke, who is White, has worked on integrating issues of systemic racism into curriculum and spoke specifically about those things in his interview, Stein said.

Stein also took time to praise Paddyfote, saying that she “embraced” Madison in her interim, and took on the unique challenges of the summer and re-opening with the utmost dedication, transcending any expectations of someone in a temporary role.

“We’re all so, so grateful to her for that,” Stein said.

Paddyfote will continue to lead as Cooke wraps up his responsibilities in Windsor, Stein said, though he will be meeting with all of Madison’s BOE members in the coming weeks.