Board seeks ‘wow’ factor in new superintendent

Photo

Doug Heuer

By Jon Moffett

Austintown school officials expect to narrow the candidate pool after the holiday.

AUSTINTOWN — Wanted: an energetic, passionate superintendent who will bring both excitement and experience to the Austintown School District. Community involvement is encouraged and creativity is a must.

Richard Zimmerman, Austintown Board of Education president, listed the qualities he and other board members would like to see in the district’s new superintendent.

“We’re looking for that ‘wow’ factor with somebody we bring in,” Zimmerman said. “We want somebody who will come in and jump in with two feet.”

The district started its search for a new superintendent to replace Doug Heuer, who will leave the district for the Cleveland Heights-University Heights School District July 31. Zimmerman said the board sent out an application via e-mail to every superintendent and treasurer in the state. The district is also looking to replace treasurer Barbara Kliner, who will retire at the end of the calendar year.

The board also posted the opening on the Mahoning County Educational Service Center’s Web site.

“We have had, at last I heard, 12 superintendents who have already filled out the application since last Friday,” Zimmerman said. “We put the treasurer’s job up and we got about 12 applications for the position in about two weeks. And we’ve got 12 for the superintendent’s job in less than a week.”

Zimmerman said he expects the number of applications to more than double within the next week. The board will stop collecting applications July 6 and then will narrow the candidate pool based on r sum s. He said he expects to find a handful of solid candidates for further evaluation.

“We’ll narrow it down by weeding people out,” he said. “Once we check backgrounds and make sure applicants have all the necessary certificates, we’ll lose a couple. But superintendents are pretty well [qualified] on everything.”

Zimmerman said replacing Heuer will not be an easy task, as the current superintendent brought a wealth of knowledge and creative thinking with him from his prior experience in the Columbus area.

“Doug came to us from a large district in Columbus, and he brought a lot of new ideas to us,” he said. “We were a 1950s school district and basically stuck in a rut. He walked in and shook everybody up a little bit.”

Heuer, who will begin his new position at CH-UH Aug. 1, said he was selected by an independent executive search firm last month. He said he is excited and somewhat sad to leave the district.

“Obviously I have mixed emotions,” he said. “I thank the board of education to have the confidence in me to bring me here four years ago and to have me be part of the whole process of changes we went through here.”

He added that he’ll miss the students the most and that he’ll take the “once a Falcon, always a Falcon” motto with him.

Zimmerman credited Heuer with raising test scores, incorporating additional classes and balancing the budget for the district during his four-year tenure here. He said the next superintendent has his work cut out for him.

“Hopefully we don’t lose anything and we pick up someone just as good or better,” he said. “I don’t know about better, because he’s brought a lot of ideas into our district.”

jmoffett@vindy.com