By Lynne Hendricks
NEWBURYPORT — The city's Superintendent Search Committee is expediting its search because of a new surge of vacant superintendent seats across the state.
The committee has zeroed in on five candidates vying to become Newburyport's next superintendent of schools and will spend today and tomorrow whittling that number down to three.
Committee members are under the gun to speed up the search process that was already designed to beat out other districts looking to fill the same position in their respective school systems.
Committee Vice Chairman Bruce Menin said there are a number of districts in the market for a new superintendent that "were not looking four weeks ago," and given that one or more of the potential candidates Newburyport is looking at are finalists in other districts, the reasons for increased expediency have grown.
The new School Committee plan is to announce the three finalists when their names are delivered by the screening committee tomorrow at a specially organized 7 p.m. meeting.
From there, they will launch into an expedited interview process beginning Friday, followed by two more on Monday and Tuesday. The interviews will be public and will take place at 6:45 p.m.
Committee member Stephanie Weaver said the interviews will be conducted by the committee, followed by 30 minutes for a public question-and-answer session.
The School Committee hopes to identify its top candidate as early as possible in order to avoid losing candidates to other districts.
The previous schedule laid out that the slate of finalists would be presented by March 5, with a preferred candidate announced by March 12. Site visits were scheduled to take place by March 26 with an announcement of the new superintendent coming by March 31. The goal now is to speed up each step in the process where possible, Menin said.
In the neighboring Triton Regional School District, where current Superintendent Sandra Halloran is stepping down from her post to retire, three finalists for her position are to be announced at a committee meeting tonight. Their interview process is expected to commence in mid-March.
Interview Schedule
Candidate #1 interview: Friday from 6:45 to 8:45 p.m.
Candidate #2 interview: Monday, from 6:45 to 8:45 p.m.
Candidate #3 interview: Tuesday from 6:45 to 7:45 p.m.
All interviews will be held in the Rupert A. Nock Middle School Library.
