Warsaw Schools Interviewing Internal Candidate For Superintendent
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Though the Warsaw School Board didn’t drop any names, it may be getting closer to finding a new superintendent. During the board’s meeting Monday night, President Jennifer Tandy stated, “The board would like to report we are continuing our superintendent search. We are going through that process with an internal candidate. We conducted our second interview with this candidate and are moving through the process, and we hope to have an announcement soon.” At a special board meeting Feb. 5, Hintz announced his retirement effective June 30. He was approved as superintendent April 27, 2009. At the March 24 board meeting the school board announced it contracted with BWP & Associates, which specializes in superintendent searches. The cost of the contract was $6,000 plus expenses for the leadership profile audit and interviews for internal search. If the board does a national search, the expense would be an additional $10,000. During a March 31 community input meeting on WCS’s next superintendent, hosted by BWP & Associates, many of the constituents advocated for Chief Academics Officer and Assistant Superintendent David Hoffert to take over the superintendent’s reigns. Hintz announced Hoffert as WCS’s assistant superintendent at a Dec. 16 board meeting. He was just the chief academic officer at that point. His promotion to assistant superintendent became effective Jan. 1. Also during last night’s meeting, Hintz reported on his concerns with the second round of ISTEP testing starting today. “Tomorrow, Mrs. (Amy) Sivley, Mr. (Brad) Hagg and all of our principals and us here will be watching what happens with the second round of ISTEP testing. We purposely made a decison that we would start on Tuesday and not on Monday,” Hintz said. Sivley is WCS’s chief accountability officer and Hagg is the chief technology officer. In the past week, Oklahoma experienced problems with the testing through CTB McGraw-Hill, Hintz indicated. “There’s just a lot of chatter out there socially on the Internet, and even today I sent a copy of an article to the board that Fort Wayne was not going to rely on technology. They’re going to administer ISTEP with the paper-and-pencil method,” Hintz stated. “I will say that I’m so proud of our team here,” he said. “All of our tech staff touched every computer in our system over spring break as a preparation to get ready for tomorrow. This is high-stakes testing and we’ve done, we believe, everything that we can do so that we’re not the cause of any breaks in transparency or breaks in technology. So I’d like to publicly thank everyone who’s been a part of getting ready for ISTEP tomorrow.” In other business, the school board: • Approved several donations to Harrison Elementary School, including a $4,800 Innovative Technology Grant from CenturyLink Foundation to construct a small outdoor observatory and purchase an imagining system to create an outdoor classroom for astronomy; $5,000 from Lowe’s to build a pavilion near the Hoosier Heritage Schoolhouse on the school campus; and a $1,472 EnviroWatts grant from Kosciusko REMC to construct raised bed gardens. • Heard presentations on stability balls from Sherri Snow at Jefferson Elementary School and on drums from Rebecca Crim at Leesburg Elementary School. Free videos of both presentations are available on the Times-Union website at www.timesuniononline.com • Recognized Warsaw Community High School senioir Megan Smith, daughter of Gary and Melody Smith, for earning national recognition in the 2014 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. • Recognized several employees, including Erica Purvis as the Indiana Association of School Business Officials Treasurer of the Year for Region 2; Greg Schroeder as the IASBO School Support Professional of the Year for Region 2; and Tracy Horrell as the Indiana Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association Middle School Athletic Director of the Year for 2013-14. • Announced upcoming board work sessions will be May 13 and June 17 at 4 p.m., with regular meetings scheduled for May 19 and June 23 at 7 p.m. • Heard from Hintz that student enrollment for March 2014 was 7,273, up 190 students from the same time last year. That figure includes students in the Claypool and Leesburg Early Learning Classes and Good Beginnings Preschool.
