Danvers Superintendent Search Narrowed To 7 Finalists

DANVERS, MA — A national search for the next Danvers superintendent of schools has been narrowed to a list of seven finalists that Search Committee Chair Robin Doherty said she is "very comfortable" will produce a strong candidate to fill the permanent position that has been open for nearly a year.

Doherty told the School Committee on Monday night that the field of seven finalists will be trimmed to three to five candidates who will then be publicly revealed and made available for interaction at the schools starting at the beginning of January.

"The selection was very thoughtful and we were pretty much all on board with who we wanted to bring in (as finalists)," Doherty said of the Search Committee, "which I thought was great because we looked back at the (focus group-created) brochure and the vision of what we felt like we needed in a new superintendent (in determining finalists).

"I'm not concerned that we won't find a strong candidate from one of the applicants out of the Search Committee. I feel very comfortable and strong with that."

Doherty said for confidentiality reasons the candidates will not be named publicly until they are one of those three to five finalists.

"Those will be the ones we bring forth to the (full School) Committee and that will be when we will have time for you all to come to meet them at the schools," she said. "They will be touring the schools and when we will make visits to where they work."

Under the current timeline, which remains consistent from earlier this fall, a vote on the next superintendent could be held at the Jan. 26 School Committee meeting.

"It feels like in January things are really going to get going in a more public way," School Committee Chair Eric Crane said, "which is good."

While Doherty said she could not reveal too many details about the candidate pool for confidentiality reasons, she said the consultant told her the inquiries received were "very strong" with a pool of candidates that were "not too low or too high."

"I was happy that we all agreed on the candidates to bring in," agreed School Committee member Alice Campbell, who is one of the two Committee liaisons to the Superintendent Search Committee, along with Doherty. "They are all very strong. Some of them we are bringing in to get kind of a perspective that might be a little different than what we were looking for in terms of experience so, hopefully, we have a diverse background enough of a pool where we'll see every kind of candidate pass through."

The permanent superintendent to replace Acting Superintendent Mary Wermers is set to begin serving the district under contract as of July 1, 2023. Wermers was chosen as a co-acting superintendent when former Superintendent Lisa Dana went on extended medical leave in December 2021 before she officially retired in August.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)