The Harwood Unified Union School District (HUUSD) Board will begin looking for a replacement for Harwood’s former principal, Amy Rex.
At the HUUSD Board’s December 20 meeting, Superintendent Brigid Nease explained to the board members how Rex’s replacement will be found.
Rex resigned on June 19, 2017 due to issues with the HUUSD Board. Rex specifically mentioned the board’s May 24 meeting, in which board member Heidi Spear, who has since resigned, sent a memorandum to the board alleging an Open Meeting Law violation and a hostile board environment.
Board members lamented Rex’s resignation because of her work with proficiency-based learning as well as her leadership throughout a tumultuous 2016-2017 school year.
Due to timing, the board was not able to replace Rex properly for the 2017-2018 school year. Most positions are advertised in the winter and they were heading into the summer months. They named Brian Mooney and Sam Krotinger as co-principals alongside Lisa Atwood.
Nease, on December 20, told the HUUSD Board members that advertisements for a new principal would begin in mid-January and it will run for at least three to four weeks.
While the advertisement is attracting prospective principals, the board and the HUUSD administration will form a search committee.
The search committee will consist of at least two students, one sophomore and one junior, two teachers, one or two support staff employees, two board members, at least two parents, Nease and Atwood.
Garret MacCurtain, board member from Duxbury, and Rosemarie White, of Warren, volunteered to serve as the two board members on the search committee.
Alycia Biondo, Warren, asked Nease how the committee would choose which parents will serve on the board. Nease explained the committee will decide that.
“The caution here is that a committee can be too large to be highly functional and most of you have worked on teams and you know when you get up to 12 to 14 people, the thing of it is a lot of folks want to participate and if you are folks in the community, there will be a community night at the point where the committee gets to a finalist where you can spend some pretty concentrated time with folks, figure out your impressions and give your feedback,” Nease explained.
She also told the board that if there are two finalists, they will spend a day in the school interacting with the faculty and the committee and then they will gauge faculty response to the finalists.
