Principal search starts at Souhegan

Thursday, November 26, 2009

By DEAN SHALHOUP

Staff Writer

AMHERST – The search for the educator who will succeed interim Souhegan High School principal Jim Bosman officially got under way this week.

Postings for the position, which Bosman, a former Souhegan teacher and dean of faculty, agreed to fill for one year upon the 2008 departure of Scott Prescott, have begun appearing on various education-related Web sites and will start showing up in newspapers the first week of December.

The highly-inclusive process will be conducted by the 13-member Principal Search Committee, which includes a mix of school board members, Souhegan teachers, administrators and support staff, along with two high school students and two local residents.

That panel will be assisted by four, 10-member satellite committees: Faculty, Students, SAU 39/Souhegan administrators, and Community/School Board/Parents.

The timetable for this search was announced at last week’s Souhegan Cooperative School Board meeting.

A similar process took place last spring to find a successor for Prescott, who resigned for personal reasons. In that search, the original 26 applicants were narrowed to two finalists – Hollis resident Joseph Dillon, then principal of Melrose, Mass., High School, and Sue M. Gee, superintendent of the Quabbin Regional School District in Barre, Mass. – but after Dillon dropped out, the committee chose to suspend the process, leading to the Bosman’s nomination as a one-year interim principal.

As for the current search, the deadline for applications is Jan. 4, 2010. Initial interviews are scheduled to start the following week, with semi-finalist interviews during the third week of January.

SAU 39 Superintendent Mary Jennings said roughly 10 candidates are expected to make the first cut, each of whom will be re-interviewed in non-public sessions by the committees, which will also research the candidates’ references.

By the first part of February, Jennings said, the committees will have selected an estimated three to five finalists, who will face another round of interviews and be scheduled for visits to the Souhegan campus.

Jennings will conduct the final interviews during the third week of February, according to the schedule, and if all goes as planned, the successful candidate will be nominated at the Feb. 18 Souhegan School Board meeting.

For Bosman, returning as interim principal last year was an easy decision, he said at the time, given his long, deep history at Souhegan.

He was on the staff when Souhegan opened in 1992, and in all, taught mathematics there for 14 years. From 1992-98, he also served as the mathematics curriculum coordinator, a position he left when he became dean of faculty from 1998-2001.

He had retired in 2008 from Brookline, Mass., High School, where he’d served as coordinator of mathematics since leaving Souhegan in 2005.

Dean Shalhoup can be reached at 673-3100 Ext. 31 or dshalhoup@cabinet.com.