Mount Pleasant Public Schools hopes to have new superintendent selected by June
Mount Pleasant Public Schools has begun the hiring process for its new superintendent and hopes to have one chosen by June.
Following the resignation of former Superintendent Joe Pius, the Michigan Leadership Institute has worked with the MPPS Board of Education to find a suitable replacement.
"We're still a long ways away," said MLI president Michael Wilmot. "We are facilitating the process through the board of education."
Board President Timothy Odykirk said the district is still in the process of collecting applications. The application deadline is April 29 and all applications will be reviewed by MLI before the end of May.
MLI will make recommendations to the school board and a meeting will be held on May 4 to determine which six candidates will have the opportunity to interview in public meetings. The public will have a chance to write out questions for the candidates.
A week after all six candidates are interviewed, two final candidates will be selected.
Both candidates will be interviewed separately on May 17 and 18. The interview process for the two candidates will be similar to that of the six and will be televised. School board members will have the opportunity to visit the current school districts of the two remaining candidates.
Odykirk is hoping for a lot of community involvement throughout the process.
"This is a very standard process for looking for superintendents across the state," he said.
He said MLI's input in the search helps maintain the confidentiality of the process.
"There are a lot of qualities listed that the community, when they got together in open community forums, had picked for us," Odykirk said.
Ideally, the new superintendent will be a good communicator who can reach out to the community, is good with information and data and has good leadership skills, he said.
The open position was posted on MLI's website. Though Odykirk is hoping for many qualified applicants, Wilmot is not sure how many applications to expect.
"It's purely guesswork," Wilmot said. "I would say that you would expect between 18 to 24, somewhere in that range."
Odykirk hopes to have a new superintendent identified by June 1 and in place within the school district by July 1.
"We're very excited," he said. "Mount Pleasant is a very good district for candidates across the state"
