Readers Tell 109 Board to Wait

A majority of readers responding to Patch’s poll measuring whether the selection of a new superintendent for want the Board of Education to wait until after the April election.

Of the 102 who responded, approximately half (54) want the Board to wait while 22 are content with the current members making the decision and 26 like a hybrid idea of starting immediately but giving candidates for the Board some voice in the process.

meeting she would retire at the end of the 2012-2013 school year. Members will interview search firms to help find a new leader at their July 16 meeting. That portion of the meeting will be in executive session.

A discussion with both Board President Ellen London and Linda Hanson indicated a delay until spring could well require an interim superintendent for next year.

Hanson, the former superintendent of Township High School District 113, heads an executive search firm specializing in placement of school administrators.

Russillo does consider the use of an interim superintendent the best way to proceed, but considers it the preferable alternative.

“If an interim is the only way to go to allow the next Board to select the next full time (superintendent) for this District then that is what we have to do,” Russillo writes. “It is not the perfect scenario but the decisions this Board has made are far from perfect.”

Another reader, Dan Gross, wants the current Board to proceed with dispatch. “If you wait until April, all the good candidates will be gone,” Gross writes. “You simply can't wait.”

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