One Superintendent Invited Back to School for Interview
By Leslie Rott

The school board will invite one of four candidates for superintendent to visit Mackinac Island for one more interview before offering the job, it was decided at a board meeting Tuesday, June 27. If the position is not filled with that person, the board plans to open the search process again.

Roger Schrock has agreed to return to the Island.

Prior to the meeting, board members filled out confidential surveys, ranking the candidates in order of their preference as to who they felt was the strongest person for the position, based on eight criteria outlined during the interview process. (See story elsewhere in this issue.) Their preferences were consolidated by consultant Ken Drenth with Mr. Schrock ranking the highest, followed by Beth Robb, Cynthia Leaman, and Kent Bowden.

"Your leanings are pretty obvious to which candidates you think are the strongest," Ken Drenth told the trustees.

The board considered whether to visit the hometowns of the candidates and how many candidates to eliminate. In the end, they decided to eliminate all but one, and to invite that person back to the Island, and decided to forego hometown visits because it would be too difficult for trustees to leave the Island in the summer.

"If it comes down to the bottom two, I would like to open up some additional interviews," said Trustee Jason St. Onge in discussing whether to invite more than one candidate back.

The board voted on which candidates to keep and which to eliminate, unanimously agreeing that Mr. Schrock should return. Trustees were mixed on whether to keep Mrs. Leaman and Mrs. Robb, however, Mrs. Robb received votes from the women and not the men on the board. They and Mr. Bowden were eventually eliminated.

"I'm not a fan of wasting someone's time and giving them a courtesy second interview," said Mr. St. Onge, in arguing for only one candidate to be invited back. Even so, he noted, Mr. Schrock has not been offered the job, just a second interview.

If, after that, the board does not offer him the job, it will start the superintendent search over.

"I think you've made a big mistake," Trish Martin told Mr. St. Onge of the decision to eliminate all three candidates.

The meeting was recessed so Mr. Drenth could confirm with Mr. Schrock that he is still interested in the position.

"That's what they have to do... It's just what everybody does," Mr. Drenth said of the board's decision to eliminate all, but one candidate. "I think he is an excellent candidate," he said of Mr. Schrock.

The board will meet informally with Mr. Schrock Sunday, July 2, at 5 p.m. at Mackinac Island Public School. The public is welcome to attend and the board hopes to make a decision on the matter during that time.

In other business at the meeting, Superintendent Jack Dehring told the board that the Community Action Agency has

agreed to conduct a preschool program on the Island in the fall and that the school will provide a room for the program. As long as the Island has five fouryear olds in the program, he said, Community Action will fund it. Licensing through Community Action should take place in July and funding is expected through the Michigan School Readiness program. The board is still looking for a way to fund preschool for threeyear olds.

If there are not enough children, Mr. Dehring told the board, the school could fund and operate the program.

The board's annual organizational meeting will be Thursday, July 20 at 7:30 p.m. Abudget hearing will be held at 7 p.m. that evening and a breakfast hearing will be held at 7:15 p.m.