(Lake Park)– The Harris-Lake Park School District is once again looking for a new Superintendent. Meeting in special session Monday evening, the board voted to accept the resignation of Les Douma. Douma initially served as interim Superintendent when he was first hired a couple of years ago. Douma says some health concerns with his wife is what led up to his decision to step down effective in early July…
“My wife is about my age and had a surgery a while back and it probably didn’t go as well as we had hoped. And it isn’t that she’s physically unable to get around but it’s difficult. I think it’s probably my time to step aside and start doing some things in helping her. She’s been pretty supportive of me for quite a few years so I better be supportive of her.”
Douma’s departure comes at a critical time as the district will be bringing a bond issue to the voters November 7th which, if approved, would make the current middle school/high school a K-12 facility…
“You know it’s like coaching. You know you have that season you have to play or you have that first ball game. You’re either going to be confident about that first ball game because you put in all that work you have to do in order to prepare for the game. That’s what needs to be done now. The district has to work hard between now and November 7th.”
School Board President Evan Bensley says they’ll begin advertising for a part-time Superintendent immediately as they have a short time frame to find a successor…
“Yeah, we were kind of taken back a little bit, but we understood, too, that Les has some issues now with his wife and her health and that he needs to be home with her to help her quite a bit, so we understand his concern about having to be home. We knew coming in when we first hired him again for another year that we might be running into this issue. Unfortunately it just hit us a little sooner than what we expected.”
Bensley says if things go accordingly, the goal would be to have a successor in place just prior to Douma’s departure…
“We’re hoping to get him for a couple of weeks to do some mentoring with him and show him around, or her, and end up starting in almost right away.”
Board members Monday evening drew up a list of qualifications they’d like to see in a new Superintendent. They include someone who’s transparent, excellent with communicating with staff and the community, someone with experience in passing bond issues, someone with a good relations with students; someone familiar with maintaining facilities and someone familiar with small school districts and how they operate.
