Search for new Sisters Middle School principal is underway

The search for a successor to Sisters Middle School Principal Lora Nordquist has already begun. If all goes as Superintendent Ted Thonstad hopes, he will have someone appointed by May 26.

“I’d like to have it done before Memorial Day,” he said last week.

Nordquist announced recently (see The Nugget, April 12, page 1) that at the end of the school year she will leave the principalship she has held for the past six years and take a newly created administrative post with Crook County schools in Prineville.

Thonstad’s first step in opening a search was to post the position on http://www.edzapp.com, a statewide Web site for school jobs in Oregon. The site is accessible nationally and no one will be surprised if some applications are received from out of state.

“We could get applicants from all over but I would be willing to bet that 90 percent of them will be from Oregon,” Thonstad said. He also noted that some people already on the Sisters staff have expressed interest in the position.

Although the superintendent will make the final decision, he will have extensive help reaching it. He will appoint a search committee of eight or nine people including parents, teachers, classified staff members and a board member or two. The committee will review the applications, winnow them down, interview top candidates and recommend two finalists. The committee may also make site visits to the places where some of the applicants currently work.

Thonstad will interview the two finalists and then make a selection.

In addition to serving as principal, Nordquist has been serving as the district’s curriculum coordinator, taking advantage of one of her areas of concentration as a student of education. But Thonstad won’t necessarily expect the new principal to take on that part of the job.

“It takes you a year to get your feet on the ground in those jobs,” Thonstad said. “The first year in a new building as a new principal with the fifth grade moving over there…I think that’s going to be enough of a challenge.”

He referred to the fact that Sisters fifth graders will be moved to the middle school this fall to relieve crowding at the elementary school. Nordquist has been deeply involved in the planning for this transition, adding to concern over the timing of her departure. But Thonstad pointed to a small silver lining in that Nordquist will be working in Central Oregon (and for the first year continuing to live in Sisters), thus being accessible for consultation with the new person and others.

Thonstad last week made available the letter of reference he wrote for Nordquist to Crook County officials. In it he described her as “an educational leader par excellence, easily ranking as one of the top educators and principals I have known and had the pleasure of working with. Talk to any member of her staff and they will tell you that she is absolutely the best person they have ever worked for and how much they appreciate her leadership. Walk down the hall with her and listen to the interaction with passing students and you will quickly sense their esteem for a principal who knows them by name and cares for them as individuals.”

In her own letter of resignation submitted to the school board at its April 10 meeting, Nordquist confessed “a mixture of emotions.” She said she was excited about her new job but considered her 14 years in Sisters schools “nothing but a pleasure.”

She added: “Most of all, I must compliment the entire staff of Sisters Middle School. They are the most professional, positive, flexible and fun people I’ve ever had the pleasure to know. While they make it very hard to leave in one sense, they make it easy in another. I am absolutely confident that they will set the next principal up for success.”