District in familiar territory — searching for superintendent
The Onteora school board next week will begin mapping out the process for its second superintendent search in as many years.
“I think we want to find someone as soon as is prudent,” board mem- ber Laurie Osmond said Wednesday. “We are working out the details, and we’ll be able to make a little bit more of an announcement about what timeline is and what the process is shortly.”
The board this week announced school district Superintendent Bruce Watson will be leaving at the end of June after only 10 months on the job.
Watson said only that his resignation was the result of a family issue, and he declined to elaborate in a follow-up interview.
“I’m kind of sad I have to do this because I really found this district to be a very good district, and I think it has the ingredients to be a great district, and I was hoping to be part of that,” he said.
“I found everybody to be welcoming, engaging with me, and the board has been very supportive,” he added. “It’s a recipe for a superintendent to have a lot of success with a district.” Osmond said the board is “very supportive of [Watson’s] personal choice to put family first.”
“The board is very appreciative of Bruce’s time here and his accomplishments,” she said. “He was able to set in motion a lot of really terrific things in the time that he was here ... in terms of team building and setting a direction for the district.”
Watson was hired at an annual salary of $180,000 after a nearly yearlong search for a successor to former Superintendent Phyllis McGill, who left in June 2015.