H-LP School Board Pursues New Option In Superintendent Search
H-LP School Board Pursues New Option In Superintendent Search
April 07, 2022Steve Schwaller
(Lake Park)– The Harris-Lake Park School Board Wednesday evening voted to hire a firm to assist in the search for a part-time interim Superintendent. Current Superintendent Andy Irwin says the action comes after a technicality arose in talks with sharing the position with a neighboring district…
“You know we had some good opportunities for sharing and just couldn’t quite get the agreements that we were looking for, thought we had a good partner in Okoboji and it was no fault of ours, no fault of Okoboji, so we really appreciate their, them coming to the table with us. It’s just one of those things that just wasn’t going to happen and we just felt that with the time of the year that we’re in we need to make a decision and make sure someone’s in place and so we feel like that interim position to get us through next year to where our board has a little bit longer time to make decisions and make things secure for the future, that’s the best route to go.”
Irwin says timing is starting to become an issue as the district is also in the process of interviewing for an Elementary Principal, a position that had been previously shared with the Superintendent…
“You know, we’ve gone through our elementary principal interviews so we thing we’re getting those things wrapped up, and this is another step. It’s something that you don’t think about often but when you don’t have a leader in place, everybody gets a little bit nervous and it’s one of those things that yeah, we’re getting there and we’ll have somebody in place and we’ve got good people in our district and, you know, there’ll be people that will pick up the pace if needed and we’ll get things figured out, but it’s just kind of causes some anxiety in the first part, so.”
Irwin says they’ve been very pleased with the volume and quality of candidates for the Elementary Principal position. He says they may be ready to offer the position to a final candidate next week.
