Schools
UPDATED: Union Hopes to Meet More Candidates When Superintendent Search Re-Boots
Top candidate for Montgomery County Schools superintendent has withdrawn. Board members may make interim appointment Wednesday.
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With the school board’s top pick for superintendent dropping out of consideration for the job, the head of the Montgomery County teachers’ union says he hopes more candidates meet with the public in the next round of the search.
Houston administrator Andrew Houlihan, who last week was named the “preferred candidate” for the Montgomery superintendent job, withdrew his name from contention on Sunday.
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The president of the Montgomery County Education Association, one of more than a dozen organizations the Montgomery County School Board invited to help in the interview process, said he was disappointed not to meet more candidates.
MCEA President Doug Prouty told Montgomery Community Media the community panel was told members would interview the final candidates for the superintendent post, but instead only met Houlihan.
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The school board had 25 applicants, selected eight for in-person interviews and interviewed seven after one candidate dropped out.
The Montgomery County Board of Education says it will meet on Wednesday, May 20, to act on the conditional appointment of an interim superintendent. The appointment—effective July 1, 2015, through June 30, 2016—will be contingent upon final written approval of the State Superintendent of Schools.
The meeting will begin at 3 p.m. and will be held in the Board Meeting Room of the Carver Educational Services Center, 850 Hungerford Drive, in Rockville. To view the agenda, click here.
Prouty told the media outlet the board should appoint an interim superintendent and start a new search in the fall. Prouty would not say whether he felt current Interim Superintendent Larry Bowers should continue in that role.
County Council President George Leventhal said Monday some of the “hottest superintendent prospects” interviewed for the Montgomery job have taken jobs elsewhere. So school board members will have to decide whether to proceed with a one-year interim chief, or try to interview other candidates.
Leventhal said Bowers is a prime candidate to serve as interim superintendent for the next school year.
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