Englewood school district begins new superintendent search after death of administrator

The Englewood school board has begun a superintendent search after the former district administrator died in a car crash late last year.

The Board of Education unanimously approved developing a contract with Ray & Associates Inc., an organization that specializes in school executive leadership searches, during a special meeting Thursday night.

“We’re going to move this process as quickly as possible to get things rolling,” board President David Matthews said.

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Matthews said the district ideally would like to get a superintendent in place to start by the end of June, but he recognized that it depends on a number of factors, including the quality of candidates, how long the interview process takes and whether a candidate needs to give notice to a former school district before beginning in Englewood.

“Those are factors out of our control, but what we can control is the expedition conducting this search in a quick but thorough way,” Matthews said.

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The school district plans to give the community, students and parents a way to provide input on what they’d like to see in a new superintendent, although the format is still being decided, Matthews said.

The school board and Ray & Associates will discuss the qualities they’d like to see in a superintendent before the interviews begin, but Matthews said he’s certain the trustees would prefer someone who “focuses very heavily on academic performance.”

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Former Superintendent Ronel Cook, who had just started working for the district last August, died in a car crash in November. Acting Assistant Superintendent Jennifer Sifuentes has been acting superintendent since Cook's death.

Matthews previously said that in the short time Cook was part of the district, he was "intelligent, committed, and had great attention to detail."

"He had developed in such a short period of time a true liking for the Englewood school district," Matthews said in November. "He’s going to be sorely missed. He had just started on so many different things that we need to address in the district.”

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Englewood school district begins new superintendent search