Applications roll in for school post

More than two dozen educators have applied for the job being vacated by Sisters Middle School Principal Lora Nordquist. The search for a successor is zipping along and so far seems on track to meet Superintendent Ted Thonstad’s goal of selecting a new principal “before Memorial Day.”

By the time the position formally closed on Friday, May 5, the district had received 29 applications. Nearly three-quarters — 21 — were from people working in Oregon, including three who are currently on the Sisters school staff.

The three internal candidates are Sisters High School health and home economics teacher Michelle Herron, high school counselor Debbie Newport and fourth grade teacher Kelly Powell, who is also president of the local teachers’ union.

Thonstad said the screening committee appointed for the opening will evaluate the applications and winnow them down to the five to eight best candidates. Those semi-finalists will then be interviewed by the committee next week, probably around May 18. The interviews may take two days.

The following week, the two or three top candidates will be interviewed briefly by Sisters High School Principal Bob Macauley and Personnel Director Tim Comfort and then, presumably later the same day, by Thonstad, who will make the final choice.

The process might be extended to allow for site visits by Sisters representatives to the workplaces of the final two or three candidates. A decision on that will be made later.

The search was triggered by Nordquist’s announcement last month that at the end of this school year she will leave to take a newly created administrative position with Crook County schools in Prineville. She has been in the Sisters school system for 14 years and principal of the middle school for the past six years.

Members of the screening committee appointed by Thonstad are: Rob Corrigan, a member of the school board; Mary Lesowske, middle school secretary; Jody Henderson, high school music teacher; Mike Cox, sixth grade teacher; Shawna Bell, assistant director of the social service agency FAN; Rod Hjelmsted, an Intel employee who heads the district’s technology committee; and Midge Rose, a middle school teacher. Parent Tamara Dumolt, who volunteered for the committee, is serving as an alternate. Several members of the committee are parents of students.