WESTPORT — The Superintendent Search Subcommittee unveiled three finalists for the next superintendent job and the School Committee will interview them in open sessions from April 24 to 26, according to the UMASS Collins Center search group.
North Middlesex Regional School District Superintendent Joan Landers, Amesbury Superintendent Gary Reese and Uxbridge’s director of curriculum, instruction, assessment and accountability Richard Drolet have been named the finalists.
According to a release from the Collins Center’s John Brackett and Ray Shurtleff, there were more than 30 applications received and eight candidates were interviewed by the subcommittee.
Shurtleff and Brackett both noted that the 14-member subcommittee poured over the applicants’ qualifications before arriving at the three finalists.
Shurtleff, Brackett and school officials also have held focus groups.
A specific schedule has not been set to determine which days — April 24 to April 26 — each finalist will meet with the board.
Landers has served as the superintendent for North Middlesex Regional schools since 2012. Before that, she worked as a superintendent in Wakefield.
Reese has served as the Amesbury schools’ chief since 2015. Prior to that, he was the assistant superintendent for curriculum/instruction in Woburn and a director of curriculum, instruction and assessment in Millbury.
Drolet has served in his current position in Uxbridge since 2016 and before that he was a middle school principal in Uxbridge and an assistant principal in Cumberland, Rhode Island, schools
Last November, the School Committee voted against renewing the contract of current Superintendent Ann Marie Dargon. Her contract expires in June and school officials have said that they are on pace to hire someone well before Dargon’s contract expires.
Some school committee members have said that they would like to appoint a superintendent with a strong background in leading high school staff, with a new 5 through 12 school building on the horizon and with more attention being paid lately to the higher grades.