About a month after the Board of Education accepted the resignation of Schools Superintendent Edward Malvey, the board has started the process of finding a new superintendent.
Malvey is leaving the district in August.
The board had its first meeting on the replacement process on June 14, following the regular board meeting at Oxford High School.
“We were kind of talking about how we were going to proceed. Nothing is cast in stone. We’ve got to get on it,” said Lisa Hellauer, a Democrat on the Board of Education.
She said the board members discussed the possibility of hiring an interim superintendent, to fill in while they search for a permanent replacement.
That is what they did last August after former Superintendent Judith Palmer left the job amid a contract review controversy.
“Everything is up in the air right now about how the whole thing will unfold,” Hellauer said. “It could be an interim, or we could find the right person and hire him from the get go.”
An interim superintendent, James Connelly, filled in at the job until Malvey was hired.
Republican board member Michael Macchio said he will recommend that Connelly be brought back as interim again, if needed. He said it would provide good continuity because Connelly is already familiar with the district.
Connelly could not be reached for comment on whether he is busy elsewhere.
Macchio said advertisements will be placed in a couple of weeks and that progress is being made. Macchio said he believes this process will take time to expand the search and get as many qualified candidates as possible.
The public is not invited to the closed door meetings, but the public’s opinion — as expressed during community forums at the last superintendent search — will be taken into consideration, Macchio said.
It is unlikely that the school district will have to repeat the entire process — for example, bringing in a consultant and having new focus groups to determine what the community seeks in a superintendent, Macchio said.
“We don’t have to redo it,” Macchio said of the consultant phase of the search process.
Rose McKinnon, chairman of the school board, could not be reached for comment.
Malvey has said unexpected changes have turned up in his home and family life that require his attention.
