The Cape Elizabeth School Board is set to relaunch its search for a new superintendent.

In a letter to the community released late last week, Elizabeth Scifres, the board’s chairwoman, said the school department would begin advertising for the post again starting this month.

Interim superintendent Howard Colter was hired last spring after both finalists withdrew their candidacy for the position, which became vacant when Meredith Nadeau left Cape Elizabeth to head the school district in Newmarket, New Hampshire.

Colter, who was the longtime superintendent for the Mount Desert Regional School System, has a one-year contract that runs through June 30, 2017. Last spring, Scifres said it was not unusual for a school district to go through more than one search for a superintendent.

The goal this time around, she said, is to hire a new head of schools by March.

“In order to conduct an effective, transparent search with a high degree of staff and community input, we will keep the process and committee structures essentially the same as last time, with a few adjustments,” she added in her letter.

She said the School Board would reappoint members of the various search committees from scratch, but said those who helped out previously may reapply if they’re interested.

The committees involved in the superintendent search include an Advisory Screening Committee, which will consist of two parents, two community members, three teachers, one central office administrator, one building administrator and three School Board members.

Membership on this committee includes a mandatory training session prior to screening the applicants. The job of the Advisory Screening Committee is to make first round interview recommendations to the School Board.

In addition, Scifres said, there would once again be an Interview Committee, which would include the full School Board, one central office administrator, one building administrator, one teacher from each building, and special education representation.

Membership on this committee also includes mandatory training. The Interview Committee will narrow the field of candidates to one or two finalists.

Scifres also said that the School Board would establish a Visiting Team, whose role would be to visit the home district of each of the finalists. The team would include three School Board members, one central office administrator, one building administrator and two teachers.

Once visiting the home districts of each finalist, the Visiting Team would then report their observations and impressions to the School Board, which would then invite one or more candidates to visit Cape Elizabeth for a final round of interviews and meetings with community members and town and school leaders.

Scifres said the timeline for hiring a new superintendent would begin with advertising the position from mid-November to early January. In the first and second week of January, the Advisory Screening Committee would go to work.

In mid-January, the Interview Committee would conduct the first round of interviews, and then in early February interviews would be conducted with the finalists. In late February or early March, the Visiting Team would make its site visits.

In the second week of March the finalists would be invited to come to Cape Elizabeth, with an announcement of a hiring expected sometime in late March.

“I am confident that together we will find a top-notch leader for our schools,” Scifres said in closing her letter.

– Kate Irish Collins

 

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