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Superintendent Dr. Jack Phelan announced to the School Committee that the search for a new high school principal will resume in December; at that time, they will also begin the search for an elementary school principal for the Hopkins School.  Last year, then-principal of Hopkinton High School John McCarthy accepted an offer for the superintendent position of the Freetown-Lakeville school district.  At the May 14 meeting, Dr. Phelan had asserted his intention of appointing "a successor to Mr. McCarthy that will have a comparable level of success to what he has accomplished over the last three years."  With the announcement coming so late in the school year, the district was not able to compile an impressive candidate pool.

Phelan appointed Ms. Alison Geary, then an assistant principal at the high school, to act as an interim principal until the district could resume a search at a more candidate-friendly time of the year.

In the past, the district has used a third-party search firm to generate a pool of candidates, and initially Phelan had intended to pursue that route.  In researching, however, the school department's Human Resources Director Kim Pulnik discovered that the costs for these firms have gone up since the last principal search, to as much as $12,000 per position.

"Given the financial times that we're facing," Phelan said, "it just did not seem to me to be the best use of our funds at this point in time."

Phelan announced that they will instead perform the search with internal resources, with Pulnik reaching out to candidates through traditional means.

The district looks to begin advertising for the high school position in December, and run through January.  They hope to conclude interviews in the beginning of February, and have recommendations for principal successors in each of the affected schools.  The interview process will proceed as the last: after initial screenings, the first interviews will be done by a team including students, parents, teachers, and administrator representatives.  That team will select three or four candidates for Phelan to interview.  At that time, they also plan to hold a community forum, where any member of the community can meet the finalists for the position and offer feedback.

Troy Mick agreed that given the current financial situation, "None of us are looking to spend 12 or 24 thousand dollars," but cautioned the committee not to be "shortsighted" about the decision not to use a search firm.  "If we think the $12,000 spent today could...save us three times that--which it absolutely could--I just want to make sure that's considered."  He continued, saying that if they expect the applicant pool to be no different by either means, then absolutely the internally-performed search makes sense, but he wanted "to make sure that we're not excluding a large portion of people that otherwise may not know that we're looking."

Phelan stated that he's very comfortable performing the search internally, as this is not the first time he has been through a search for a high school principal in the district.  "That's certainly an incredibly important position in the school district, and if I thought in any way that we would be short-changed, then I would certainly go in a different direction." He feels very comfortable with the "traditional avenues" for soliciting candidates.  "I think the reality of the matter is that we probably would generate, maybe not 95% of the pool, but...probably 90% of the candidate pool."  He did note, however, that with either method of searching, there are no guarantees.  In recent discussions with colleagues, Phelan revealed that they've all found the candidate pools for "upper-level administrator positions" are "very, very light" across the state.

"We'll be as aggressive as possible," Phelan promised, "and we'll do our best to try to go through traditional and maybe some less traditional means to try to attract some candidates," including using his connections to get word out.

School Committee chair Nancy Burdick also pointed out that the school's reputation precedes them.  Phelan and Assistant Superintendant Dr. Mary Colombo agreed, also noting that the district has had some state-level recognition in recent years: the district has sent a team for the NEASC showcase for two years in a row, and the curriculum team just presented four sessions at the statewide curriculum summit.  "All of that exposure gets your name out there," Phelan said.  "People hear 'Hopkinton', they're less likely to say 'Where's that?'...They'll know a little bit about [us], maybe entice their interest."