By BOB OLIVER
Times-Herald Newspapers
HEIGHTS — After two nights of interviews, District 7 has narrowed its superintendent candidate search down to the final three.
Carole Beverwyk, Charles Muncatchy and Todd Thieken were the final candidates chosen by the D7 Board of Education after a short deliberation May 14 and were invited back for a final interview before the board May 19.
Beverwyk is D7’s assistant superintendent of Curriculum, Instruction and Accountability; Muncatchy is the former superintendent at the Jaden Rose Leadership Academy in Detroit and Mount Clemens Community School District; and Thieken works as the director of curriculum and technology at Tecumseh Public Schools.
The board held special meetings on consecutive nights to interview five candidates who were recommended by the Metropolitan Detroit Bureau of School Studies, the firm hired by the board to help find a new superintendent.
Board members initially planned on only inviting two of the candidates back for the second interview but during deliberations decided that they were interested in hearing from three of them.
In the second interview, candidates will deliver a 10- to 15-minute presentation on a topic of their choice before fielding questions from the board.
D7 Board President Lori Fujita said the board hopes to find a qualified candidate and offer that person a contract at the June 2 board meeting and hopefully have a new superintendent in place by the beginning of July in time for the 2014-15 fiscal and academic year and to give the person transition time with outgoing Supt. Jeffrey Bartold before he leaves his position at the end of July.
Bartold has been D7 superintendent since 2006 and prior to that served as the district’s business manager, a role he has occupied the last two years as the district has worked to cut operational costs and lift itself out of a $1.4 million deficit.
MDBSS Executive Director Carl Weiss said that now that the final candidates have been chosen, both the board and the candidates can prepare for the next interviews.
The other candidates interviewed for the position were Teresa Winnie, Taylor School District assistant superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction, and Brodie Killian, deputy superintendent of Business and Operations at Plymouth-Canton Community Schools.
(Bob Oliver can be reached at [email protected].)