By Joe Olenick
Lockport Union-Sun & Journal
NEWFANE —
It’s a high paying, high stress job. Twenty-four hours a day you are concerned with children, a number of buildings, a large workforce and a multi-million dollar budget. There’s state standards, academic scores and often hard-to-predict funding to be concerned with. And of course, there’s the press to deal with.
Such is the job description of the school district superintendent.
With a position where so much is on the line, school boards go through an extensive process in order to find the right person.
Local districts have been through this recently: North Tonawanda appointed Greg Woytila as superintendent in June; and Royalton-Hartland chose Kevin MacDonald as its new superintendent in February 2009.
The Newfane Central School District is currently looking for a new district leader to replace Gary Pogorzelski, who retired Aug. 2. And the one characteristic the Board of Education and the community seem to favor is experience, especially in dealing with educational and financial issues.
“That’s what we’re hearing,” Board President James Reineke said. “They seem to want someone who can balance the district’s needs. A person with experience in educational leadership and finances.”
Clark Godshall, district superintendent for the Orleans/Niagara Board of Cooperative Educational Services, is overseeing the superintendent search for Newfane. He has a little experience in this area, as this is the 35th superintendent search Godshall has run. He also oversaw the North Tonawanda and Roy-Hart searches for Woytila and MacDonald.
The important thing is to have the public involved, Godshall said.
“This is an open process,” he said.
The process starts with two public meetings where residents share with district personnel what they want in a superintendent. Godshall said this particular search featured something different, as residents were also able to give their opinions online. On the district’s website, www.newfane.wnyric.org, people could take a survey asking what they want in a superintendent. Now they can use the site to e-mail any questions or comments to the board.
With the survey, Godshall said the district received 45 responses, most of which said they wanted a person who could balance the needs of the students as well as the taxpayer. The Newfane district has shown some improvement in state test scores and features one of the highest tax rates in the country for a school district.
Next, the district accepted applications for three months until Aug. 13. Godshall said there were about 30 inquiries about the Newfane position, and the district received 22 completed applications. The number of inquiries was higher than normal, Godshall said.
The group of 22 applicants was highly qualified, consisting of principals, assistant superintendents and current superintendents, Godshall said.
“There were about nine (sitting superintendents),” he said.
The application process included submitting a resume, a writing sample, letters of reference and school transcripts. The board went through everything at a meeting on Aug. 16 and narrowed the pool down to six.
The board will spend two days at the end of the month to interview each of the six remaining candidates for about an hour. Once the interviews are done, the Newfane School Board will narrow the number of candidates down to three semifinalists. Those three will be invited to each spend a day in the district on Sept. 13, 14 and 16.
On those days, the candidates will spend an hour with the district administrative team, then with a student group, teachers and members from the Parent Teachers Students Association. Godshall works with each group prior to meeting the candidate to develop questions properly.
“The board is making a deliberate effort to include as many groups as possible; we want input from residents and staff,” Reineke said. “This is probably the biggest decision the board will make in the next five years.”
Then at 6 p.m. on each night — the first two dates at the high school library and the third at the middle school — residents will be invited to a community forum to meet the candidate. Then, once all of the data and feedback is collected, the board will decide on its new superintendent. Godshall said the target date to hire a new superintendent is Oct. 1.
Back in June, Godshall said he was receiving calls about the Newfane position even before the official posting of the job. About 300 brochures were created informing those interested about the superintendent post, the Newfane district and community. They were sent out nationally, although the six finalists are all from within the state.
“I think they saw Newfane as a well-rounded community,” Reineke said.
Contact reporter Joe Olenick at 439-9222, ext. 6241.
