The search for the next superintendent of the Moorestown Township Public School District has been narrowed down and the four-member search committee has honed in on one particular candidate.
Board of Education President Don Mishler revealed last week that the four member search committee — which consists of Mishler, Christina Zajac, Matthew Simeone, and Kathy Goldenberg — recently interviewed six candidates to take over for current Superintendent John Bach at the end of the school year on July 1.
At the start of the process, Mishler said the board of education set a target date for a replacement by the end of March. Currently, the board is expecting to make a decision by that date, Mishler said.
Bach and the board attempted to renegotiate a new contract for the 38-year administrator, but attempts fell through after Gov. Chris Christie passed legislation regulating superintendent compensation throughout the state.
Legislation passed in 2011 called for caps to superintendent salaries throughout New Jersey, basing the maximum compensation on the district’s enrollment. The only way a superintendent can earn more than the governor’s salary of $175,000 is to be employed by a district that has over 10,000 students.
Bach has served as the superintendent of the school district for the past five years.
The committee interviewed six candidates as possible replacements for the position, Mishler said, narrowed the pool down to three, and have now honed in on one candidate in particular for the position. Right now the committee is in its “due diligence” phase of the process. The names of the candidates interviewed for the position were not released.
The process consists of the district investigating the candidate’s references, performing site visits, and checking up on the candidate’s credentials.
Throughout the process the board and the committee has extensively polled the Moorestown public for what it looks for in the leader of the school district. The information culled from these polls was used to whittle down the pool of applicants that had officially applied for the position.
To help streamline the process, the board of education hired West Hudson Associates to help gather data for a potential replacement. The associates devised an informal questionnaire for residents and processed the data from their answers to identify several qualities and the level of experience that residents were looking for in a new superintendent.
For more information, please visit the district’s website at www.mtps.com.
