Superintendent Search to Begin in August

The board of education will solicit superintendent candidates starting in August with a goal of hiring a new district leader by Jan. 1. 

The eventual hire will replace retiring .

The board held a special meeting Thursday with Jane Kershner, director of field services for NJ School Boards Association. Kershner will be the lead for the search, representing the Bridgewater-Raritan Regional Board of Education.

Aside from putting together the ad that will run in newspapers for a new superintendent, the board determined its timeline, with the hope of having a new superintendent start in the district on or around Jan. 1.

Doing this, Kershner said, will require time for the ad to be out in newspapers, plus sessions with the staff and public about what they are looking for in a superintendent.

“We don’t want to snub the public, parents and community members,” said board of education member Jill Gladstone. “We’re going to be covered with an acting and interim superintendent, so there is no rush.”

The board decided that the ad will run in newspapers between Aug. 11 and Sept. 8. The amount of times it will run will be based on the costs, and determined at a later date.

From there, meetings will be held during the day with staff members and in the evenings with community members in middle to late September, avoiding back-to-school nights.

Kershner will lead those input sessions on behalf of the board of education.

“This is my chance to meet with [the community], and they can ask any questions,” she said.

In addition, the board is planning an online survey for those who are unable to make meetings, but would still like to provide input on their thoughts for a new superintendent.

“We want to invite input, prepare people and keep them mindful that there is a process going on,” said board of education president Patrick Breslin.

The board determined that applications for the position will be due by Sept. 27, and Kershner will return to the board with resumes to review within 10 days of that.

From there, the board can hold interviews of the candidates, which will be done during special meetings.

If a new superintendent is not chosen out of the first pool of applicants, the process can start again after the winter break.

Board member Ann Marie Mead asked whether the state’s salary cap for superintendents has had any effect on the applicant pool in other districts.

In Bridgewater, the cap is set at $175,000 because of the number of students in the district.

“There’s a fair amount of consternation with the cap the more north you go,” Kershner said. “The salary caps don’t really impact the southern part of the state like the northern part.”

Kershner said that there may be some statewide adjustments, the more north you go in the state, and the more districts seem to believe that they should be able to pay a superintendent as they choose.

And in certain areas, Kershner said, there have been people below the superintendents in rank making more than the superintendent could.

“That is a morale problem,” she said.

But when the cap was put in place, Kershner said, they did find that a number of superintendents retired and moved out of state, going to New York or Pennsylvania. Others, she said, were still under contracts at the old rate.

Schilder is one of the latter, having had a contract approved in 2010 before the cap took effect. He had a base annual salary of $198,715, as of 2010, and his latest contract was to last from July 2011 to July 2015 with an increase of no less than 2 percent and no more than 3.75 percent.

In terms of other searches, Kershner said, at this point, they are seeing a lot of openings for superintendents around the state.

“We had had a number of openings, and a record number of superintendent searches,” she said.

At this point, the district is advertising for an interim superintendent who would be expected to start as of Aug. 1, 2013.