Pauline Proch Stepping Down From School Committee After 12 Years

Pauline Proch, the chair of Nantucket’s school committee, announced during Tuesday’s meeting that she is stepping down from her position after 12 years. Proch told the Current Tuesday evening she will participate in three more meetings: two in October and one in November. There will not be another meeting in September due to the Special Town Meeting on Sept. 17.

“My last meeting will be November and in the meantime, the school committee is going to put out a request for interested parties to apply,” Proch said.

When a committee member cuts their term short, the rest of the committee has the opportunity to appoint a temporary replacement to serve until the next election year – which in this case would be until April of 2025. A similar situation played out in June of 2021 when the committee voted 4-0 to replace Zona Butler with Rocky Fox after Butler resigned from her seat.

“That person would be free to campaign to be elected if they choose," Proch said. "That’s why I thought if I gave five months' notice, it gives somebody an opportunity to sit on the committee and decide if they are able to spend the time for the next three years."

The announcement came at the tail end of the meeting, with superintendent Beth Hallett and vice chair Laura Gallagher Byrne in particular expressing their gratitude for Proch’s commitment to the schools after she made the decision public.

Proch said that the responsibilities of  her role with the nonprofit Our House, which she co-founded, ultimately swayed her into making the difficult decision to step away from the committee.

“It has been 12 years that I have had the honor to be on your school committee, but I have realized with my new endeavor at Our House I can probably best serve students as the director of Our House because I am limited in some ways on working with students being a School Committee member," Proch said. "So it is with a heavy heart, but a happy heart, that I have talked to Dr. Hallett about this and my fellow school committee members. I think the timing is good because it allows somebody to step in and experience what the role is like for the next five or six months.

“I hear often from people that they’re nervous about running an election, or a campaign, or they don’t know if they have the time to serve on the school committee,” Proch continued. “It is a perfect time because they will be coming in at budget season and they will be able to really see and understand the work that the committee does. I think it is the right decision for everybody, and I am looking forward to seeing who is willing to step into this seat and be able to continue on to the next election period.”