By Alex Malm
The Londonderry School Board held a short Board meeting on Feb. 2 to discuss and vote on the superintendent job posting.
School Board member Bob Slater said that on Monday the search committee finished their third three and a half hour meeting.
“I can honestly say I haven’t been through anything quite like it,” said Slater who said the process was very informative.
The Committee has been working with the Ryan Group who was hired to help the School District with the superintendent search.
Starting March 7 Slater said that the representatives from the Ryan Group will go through the resume and eliminate the ones who are definitely “no’s” because they don’t have a superintendent certificate or aren’t able to get one in time.
The next Committee meeting they will then go through them and set up phone interviews. From there they will pick the candidates that they want to do a longer interview with.
Slater told the Board that if all goes well the School Board will be doing the final interviews and making a selection around the end of April. The next Superintendent is expected to begin on July 1.
Slater said that they would give the Board an update about the timeline as they go along.
One question that was brought up by School Board member Nancy Hendricks is if they should have language in the posting saying that they would like the superintendent to live locally.
“That was a big topic,” said Slater.
Slater explained that due to the housing market the Committee thought it was best to keep it to a certain mile radius instead of making the person live in Londonderry.
School Board Vice Chair Sara Loughlin said that she didn’t think they should require them to live in Town.
“I don’t think we can restrict and say you have to live in town,” said Loughlin.
She said that she thinks having a 20 to 30 mile radius is standard.
As part of the final negotiations with the candidate they select they may be able to discuss a relocation package as well, Slater said.
Slater also noted that in the job posting they don’t list an exact monetary figure for the salary so they don’t restrict themselves to a certain salary.
Slater said that members of the Board can give them questions that they think they should ask during the phone interviews.
“We’re going to do the same for the community,” said Slater.
He said they are likely going to have a short questionnaire so people in the community can give them their input before the interviews about what questions should be asked.
The Board unanimously approved the job posting.