Unit IV to help search for superintendent

By Pam Mansell
Herald Writer

The search is on for a new superintendent for Wilmington Area School District. School directors Monday night asked Midwestern Intermediate Unit IV aid in that search.

Superintendent Dr. C. Leon Ahlum, who announced last week that he will retire next month because he can no longer work with the current school board, did not attend the meeting.

Unit IV Executive Director Angelo Pezzuolo said the Grove City-based unit would advertise the opening, mail applications and conduct preliminary background checks. He added that Unit IV staff will sit in on interviews if the board wanted them to and would set up visits to candidates’ communities if needed. There will be no charge, according to the district.

Pezzuolo gave school directors a 16-page pamphlet that led them through the search process, from the setting of criteria to questions for candidates and a final contract.

Pezzuolo warned the board that “there are not a lot of applicants out there.” “There was a time we’d get 40 to 45 applicants,” he said. “Not anymore.”

Now, he said, there are maybe 10 to 15 applicants for a superintendent’s or principal’s position. “In the end, what it will boil down to is chemistry,” Pezzuolo told school directors. “You have to get a feeling about the person.” Some school directors also wanted a feel about salary, and what they might be looking at paying a new superintendent.

Ahlum’s salary was $79,900 a year, and, according to board President Richard Houlette, his was second from the bottom among the 27 schools that make up Unit IV.

“It suited him to be among the lower,” Houlette said, noting that the board “sometimes gave him (Ahlum) raises against his will.” Tracy Hoy asked Pezzuolo how “the events that brought us here” — Ahlum’s abrupt retirement and the controversy over the renovation project of two of the district’s three elementary schools — might affect the number and quality of applicants.

“Boards and superintendents have a delicate relationship,” Pezzuolo said. He noted that some of the applicants may well have had problems of their own with school boards.

“The bottom line is, I don’t know,” Pezzuolo said. “But applicants always ask, ‘What kind of a school board do you have there?’ ” School directors said they want to have a new superintendent by the start of the 2000-01 school year. They also asked Unit IV to provide a list of possible interim superintendents for the summer.

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