By By JAMES COLLINS / Niles Daily Star
NILES -- At its meeting on Monday, the Brandywine Public Schools Board of Education announced it could not come to a unanimous decision regarding the two finalists for the superintendent position and will move forward with the process by seeking additional candidates.
Original finalists David Gray and Kim Kramer were discarded and the search will go on with a new batch of potential candidates. "Where we are at this point is deadlocked," said board president James Curran. "We could not come to a unanimous decision with either candidate."
Tom Pridgeon, regional president of the Michigan Leadership Institute (the firm assisting Brandywine with the superintendent search), was on hand to confirm the board's decision to move on with the search and brought along three new resumes to present to the board.
Pridgeon did not disclose the candidates' names, but said the group was made up of a superintendent from Indiana, a Michigan high school principal and a superintendent from a small school district in Michigan.
He will continue looking for potential candidates and present more resumes to the board at its meeting on Monday. From the resumes presented, the board will select candidates to interview the following week. Curran said the timeline for the continued search is to complete the process as soon as possible and acknowledged the importance of having a unanimous decision. "I do appreciate the board's thoroughness. I think we did the right thing by moving on," he said.
Pointer-Seidner currently works as a coordinator for special education and the co-op program at Brandywine High School and Mallory is the assistant principal at Brandywine Middle School. Mallory is also a tenured teacher with the district and will remain in Brandywine with teaching responsibilities.
Interim superintendent Gary Campbell said as teachers resign or retire, positions will become open and he expects that all of these teachers will be recalled by June.
A ground-breaking ceremony for the facility improvement project was set for May 5 at 4:30 p.m. at Brandywine High School. The public is welcome to attend.