School board wraps up candidate interviews

The Sisters School Board has completed interviews of all five candidates who remain under consideration for the job as Sisters School Superintendent.

Two of the seven semifinalists selected by the board earlier this month have dropped out.

Judy Delahunt, a former personnel director for Redmond schools and a current member of the Redmond School Board, withdrew after being named interim superintendent of the Redmond school system for 2003-04. She will temporarily replace Superintendent Jerry Colonna, who last week was chosen as the next superintendent of Beaverton schools, the state's third largest school district.

Despite successfully conducting his candidacy for the Beaverton post, Colonna has continued to serve as the chief consultant for the Sisters search on behalf of the Oregon School Boards Association.

The second Sisters semifinalist to drop out last week was Merrill (Jack) Adams, superintendent of schools in Colville, Washington. Adams withdrew partly because of scheduling problems and because he is also an applicant for other superintendencies in Oregon and California.

On Friday and Saturday, March 14-15, the Sisters board interviewed the remaining five candidates for the local post: Yvonne Curtis, principal of Terrebonne Elementary School in Redmond School District; Tim Comfort, principal of Sisters Elementary School; Wayne Kostur, superintendent of Rainier School District in northwest Oregon; Doug Jantzi, director of secondary education and director of curriculum and assessment for Central Point School District in southern Oregon; and Charles Hellman, superintendent of Rogue River School District in southern Oregon.

The 10 non-board members of the search committee sat in on the interviews, which were conducted in the Sisters High School building. They did not ask questions of the candidates but they shared their impressions and evaluations with board members after the interviews.

At the end of this exercise, board members decided to check references and conduct background checks of the candidates, largely by telephone, during most of this week and to discuss their conclusions at a meeting Friday afternoon, March 21.

At that meeting the board is expected to select two or three finalists and schedule a round of public sessions for them in Sisters later this month. In the meantime, board members will probably visit the home districts of the finalists to inquire about their standing and reputation.

This search was triggered by current Sisters Superintendent Steve Swisher's announcement that he would retire in April. He was a candidate for executive director of the Confederation of Oregon School Administrators, but was beaten out in that competition by Kent Hunsaker, superintendent of Bethel schools in the western suburbs of Eugene.

Swisher has promised to keep working after his retirement until the end of the school year to help his successor during the transition.