MORGANTOWN — Class is now in session for the committee recruited to help find a replacement for Monongalia County Schools Superintendent Frank Devono, who is retiring.
The 19-person group began meeting last week.
Its members, which come from a cross-section of the community, were picked from more than 50 names submitted for consideration.
They include Al Kisner, Mark J. Nesselroad, Sam Brunett, Radine Gibson, Ashley Martucci, Amy Kitzmiller and Brad McMillen.
Craig Corkrean, Brent Wilmoth, Debbie Mulhall and Heather Deluca-Nestor also share seats on the committee, along with Jay Gardner, Jen Cox, Jerry Summers and John Brosky.
Rounding out the committee are Kevin Cain, Julia Hamilton, Tena McElwain and Sandy DeVault.
Brunett said he liked the eclectic flavor of the committee.
“That’s good. I appreciate that we have teachers and service personnel [from the school district] represented too, since we’re the ones who’ll be working the closest with the new superintendent.”
The committee for now is working the closest with Orion Delta Group, the Pittsburgh recruiting firm that also oversaw the superintendent search here when Devono was hired in 2005 from his administrative post in neighboring Harrison County’s school district.
Members of the county Board of Education (BOE), who will make the hiring decision this time around, have already discussed the preliminaries and particulars of the search.
The board is hoping for a field of three to five candidates to consider for a mid-May hiring date.
If a new superintendent is in place by June 1, the BOE can offer a multiyear contract — that’s by state code — which members say would be more attractive to a candidate with a family who has to relocate.
BOE President Barbara Parsons, meanwhile, said previously she hoped her fellow board members won’t get hung up on that date.
Parsons was on the board when Devono was hired, and she also helped conduct several national job searches in her previous career in human resources and personnel management.
The outgoing superintendent himself makes a good case study, she said. He was initially hired under a one-year contract.
And, she said, Devono has agreed to stay on in an interim basis, should the search go into the summer months.
“I don’t want to ‘settle’ because we have a deadline,” she said, last month. “I’d rather have the right person.”
