Local school districts are moving forward in their superintendent searches as both Duluth Superintendent Julio Almanza and Hermantown Superintendent Fred Majeski leave office June 30.
Duluth Public School District 709 prepares to narrow the field after its application deadline Friday, and Hermantown Public School District 700 met Friday afternoon to narrow down its field once again to two or three finalists.
Both districts are pleased with the number and quality of applications they received.
The Duluth district, which manages more than 10,000 students, is not only finishing up its application acceptance but is also finishing up its candidate profile, which will help the board narrow its field down from its estimated 25 applicants at a committee of the whole meeting on Monday Feb. 28, said Thomas Hustad, chairman of the Duluth School Board.
"(From) what we've heard about the number of other schools looking and the lack of applicants, I think we have a pretty good pool of applicants," Hustad said.
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The Hermantown Education board was also concerned about receiving quality applications but was pleased with the 27 applicants it had for the Hermantown superintendent position, said Hermantown Board of Education member Harry Cottrell.
"There are so many superintendent searches going on right now, (and) there isn't the quantity of people wanting to be superintendents," Cottrell said. "We were worried up front."
The Hermantown search did run into a little trouble last week when two of the eight finalists the board chose to interview had already accepted superintendent positions elsewhere, he said.
But with the first round of interviews done, Hermantown, which is made up of about 1,900 students, was ready to narrow the field to two or three candidates. The interviewers will now prepare to re-interview and visit with the candidates at their current positions, he said.
"All the candidates did really well, which is making our job tougher," Cottrell said. "I was very impressed with all six of them."
The six candidates interviewed were David Radovich, principle of Hermantown Middle School; Bruce Houck, superintendent of Russell-Tyler-Ruthton School District; Ken Scarbrough, superintendent of Staples Motley School District; Bill Westholm, principal of Denfeld High School; Charles Briscoe, principle of Century High School in Rochester; and Bradley Johnson, superintendent of Hill City School District.
He said he was also pleased to see some community interest at the candidate interviews. There were about 10 community members present for each one.
"I think it's good ... for the potential candidates to have the community members show interest," Cottrell said.
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The Duluth board also plans on opening its interviews to the public when the interviews begin in early March, Hustad said.
The board plans to finalize both the questions and the interview schedule next Friday, Feb. 28.
The board plans to interview the finalists itself with the help of consultants from BKB Associates, the agency the district hired to assist with the search, Hustad said.
Duluth plans to choose its new superintendent sometime in April. Hermantown School District hopes to be able to announce its next superintendent at its March 28 meeting.
