PSD superintendent search nears the finish line

Nearing the end of the long interview process, the Peninsula School District Board of Directors has selected four finalists to interview for the superintendent position.

The final interviews began Monday and will continue through Thursday (March 17) with each candidate participating in a day filled with campus tours, faculty and staff meetings, a board dinner and a public forum.

“These have been really good, get-to-know-you days for the candidates,” board president Rand Wilhelmsen said. “It’s a long day for them. They spend the whole day with us.”

The four candidates currently participating in the interview process are:

▪  Chrystalee “Chrys” Sweeting, currently the assistant superintendent of the Puyallup School District

▪  Molly Ringo, currently the assistant superintendent of the Everett School District

▪  Rob Manahan, currently the superintendent of the Lake Chelan School District

▪  Andrew Rogers, currently the superintendent of the Liberty (Arizona) Elementary School District

All four candidates hold a doctorate in education and either currently work, or have previously experience, in Washington state school districts.

Sweeting, with nearly 40 years experience working in education, has mostly recently worked in the Puyallup School District, the eighth-largest school district in the state, with more than 22,000 students.

With four decades of experience, Ringo has spent the last 15 years with the Everett School District, which has more than 19,000 students and is the 10th largest district in the state.

Manahan has spent the past six years as superintendent of the Lake Chelan School District, and was on the planning team to start Harbor Ridge Middle School, where he started his administrative career in 1992.

Rogers has 27 years experience working in education, with the past nine years at the Liberty Elementary School District in Arizona. Prior to Arizona, he worked for almost 20 years in the Marysville, Edmonds and Shoreline school districts.

There were 23 applications submitted for the superintendent position, which, with the help of the search firm hired to assist with the project, was narrowed down to five candidates for the March 5 interviews, Wilhelmsen said.

“It was tough, but in the end we saw a lot of promise in these four in that we thought they would fit our district,” Wilhelmsen said of the first round of interviews.

The search firm hired for the process, Northwest Leadership Associates, helped to streamline and simplify the process, he said.

“I think they’ve done a good job. They’ve really managed this process well,” Wilhelmsen said. “They’ve gone both inside the state and outside the state, which is what we requested them to do, and to look high and low, far and wide, to find us the best candidate. I think they worked really hard to do that.”

After this round of interviews, Wilhelmsen said the board will meet to discuss the candidates and choose a finalist for the position.

The goal is to offer a contract by March 26.

This story was originally published March 16, 2016 at 9:47 AM with the headline "PSD superintendent search nears the finish line."