Hiring of superintendent moving along

Talk about it

The St. Croix Central School Board hopes to have a new superintendent in place by the end of the week.

“We’re not going to look up until the job is done,” said Board member John Hueg at Monday’s regular Board meeting.

An all-day second interview process took place Wednesday where the four remaining candidates went through interviews and met with the public and SCC staff.

The remaining candidates are David Bradley of Charles City Schools in Iowa, Mel Lighter of Kimberly area schools, Bill Perry of Gilmanton School District and Scott Woodington of St. Croix Central Middle School.

The new superintendent will replace long-time administrator Dan Woll who will retire before next fall’s school year. Woll has been superintendent at SCC for 25 years.

The search for Woll’s replacement was reopened earlier this month when, by default, only one candidate remained vying for the position.

Current Middle School Principal Scott Woodington was the only candidate in the running after a candidate from Iowa withdrew his application.

High School Principal Glenn Webb also, one of the three finalists, withdrew his application in the wake of a flurry of retirements at the High School citing he “did this for positive reasons.”

“I want to make sure the District stays strong, and I think that I could do as much as the principal at the High School as the leader of the whole District,” Webb said earlier this month.

The decision was made to reopen the application process for the administrator to make sure the Board’s hiring practice had the full support of the public before moving forward with the new superintendent.

Board President Howard Kruschke complimented the Board’s efforts in working to find Woll’s replacement.

“Everyone’s done a bang up job in this process,” Kruschke said.

In other business:

• The Board reviewed its hiring practices and sought to repeat its success of last year when it hired several new staff members.

“I want to replicate the success of hiring rookie teachers we had last year,” said Woll. “I don’t want it to be just dumb luck.”

Woll stressed the importance of hiring new staff based on what he called “performance profiles” and not just on their qualifications alone.

In doing this, Woll cited four areas to focus on when interviewing potential new teachers. Those areas include: planning and preparation, managing the class environment, the act of instruction itself and professional responsibilities.

Woll also suggested administrators ask themselves “what makes SCC special” and why they would want to send their own kids there, and then look for those qualities in potential teaching candidates.

“One of the most important jobs the administrators have is hiring good staff,” Kruschke said.

• Warren VanRanst read the names of the Athletic GPA Award recipients, those students who were able to excel in the classroom as well as in the sporting arenas.

Recipients included: Madelin Skaalrud for girls basketball, Aaron Bannie for hockey, Heidi Olson for dance, Casey Perry for wrestling, Brady Hartung for boys basketball and Jennifer Borgstrom for cheerleading.

The combined grade point averages of the winning students was 11.964. According to VanRanst, the GPA of the combined winners was 1 percent above the rest of the student body.

• VanRanst said that in his 35 years with the District, this spring has been “the most challenging spring ever,” with regard to the scheduling of sporting events due to weather cancellations.

“Stocking caps have become more familiar on the baseball and softball fields than caps,” VanRanst said.

In all, VanRanst said 29 games have had to be rescheduled thus far.

“We have no days left to (use as) make up,” VanRanst said.

• High School Principal Webb said he has received several applications for the open positions the school will see after retirements this year, including 35 for VanRanst’s athletic director position.

• Enrollment at the Middle and Elementary schools remained the same as last month with 380 in the Middle School and 565 in the Elementary.

The High School lost four students since last month and is at 349 students.

The St. Croix Central School Board meets regularly on the third Monday of every month at 7 p.m. in the Middle School Library. The public is invited to attend. More information about the search for superintendent or other happenings at SCC can be found at www.scc.k12.wi.us/.

Tags: hammond, stcroixcentralschool, newsuperintendent