The Concord School Board has contracted with a firm that will help select candidates for the district’s next superintendent of schools.
New England School Development Council (NESDEC) based out of Marlborough, Mass., will facilitate a national search for candidates and host focus groups with community members about who they’d like to see in the district’s top position, the board said at its Dec. 9 meeting.
The cost of the search will be $17,760, according to NESDEC’s proposal to the school board. Officials said their goal is to have a new Concord schools superintendent ready to take over by July 1.
Concord School District’s leadership has been in flux in recent months following the arrest of a well-known teacher for sexual assault last April.
After special education teacher Howie Leung was arrested, students have come forward saying they shared concerns about Leung to administration – one saying she shared concerns years before his arrest –and not enough was done to protect the school community.
The Concord School Board hired an independent attorney to investigate administrators’ handling of reports concerning Leung. After the school board received the report, it voted to terminate the contracts of both district superintendent Terri Forsten and Concord High School principal Tom Sica.
Career educator Frank Bass of Manchester has led the district as interim superintendent since Forsten’s departure in early November. Shortly after, Michael Reardon, retired headmaster of Pembroke Academy, was appointed as interim Concord High principal.
The board has been eager to begin the search process for the new superintendent. The search for a permanent principal will follow.
School Board members said they were interested in NESDEC’s services because of its wide reach in the education community. Last time the board searched for a new superintendent five years ago, they contracted with the New Hampshire School Board Association.
Forsten, who was formerly the superintendent of the Laconia School District, was selected through that process.
Concord School Board members Barb Higgins, Nancy Kane and Liza Poinier each spoke to a representative from the community who used NESDEC for their own administrator search during recent years.
They said those representatives helped them find qualified candidates from New Hampshire and other states.
“The representatives said, ‘We did not know this person who is now our superintendent. We didn’t know he existed, and he didn’t know we existed, but NESDC connected us, and we’re extremely happy with the outcome,’ ” Poinier said.