Aspen School District will seek internal candidate for new superintendent

The Aspen School District will seek an internal candidate for its next superintendent, the school board decided during its Wednesday board meeting.

Members of the school board agreed unanimously that a national search was unnecessary after receiving hundreds of emails from community members showing support for Assistant Superintendent Tharyn Mulberry as the district’s next leader. The school board decided to post an internal job listing for the superintendent position during its meeting. 

The school district will keep the job open internally until 4 p.m. on Wednesday, March 20. Finalists for the position will not be chosen until after the application closes. Mulberry is not guaranteed the position, though several members of the school community attended the board meeting to express their support for him.

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“I have never seen such unanimity of response from all those different sectors of the community, staff members who have children, staff members who don’t,” said board member Stacey Weiss. “The total consensus really was that we not have a national search, that we have an excellent candidate in our district, and that we should start there, and we’ll save a lot of money for the school districts to not do a national search.” 

Mulberry was one of three finalists in the Roaring Fork School District’s superintendent search, but he withdrew himself from consideration on Monday. ASD Superintendent Dave Baugh announced on Feb. 28 that he would resign on June 30; he will become the executive director of the Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club.

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He became superintendent of the Aspen School District in April 2020 after leading the Centennial School District in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The school board extended his contract in June 2022 through June 2027. The contract was approved with an amendment to incentivize him to remain with the district until at least 2027.

Board President Christa Gieszl said she received over 250 emails in support of Mulberry stepping into the superintendent role after Baugh announced he would resign. He started working for the school district as principal of Aspen High School in 2015 then became assistant superintendent in 2020 when Baugh was hired as superintendent.

“I’ve been blown away by the support that teachers and staff have shown me,” Mulberry told The Aspen Times in an interview. “I expected I’d have some support, but I had no idea there would be this many people interested in having an internal hire rather than a national search, so I’m super excited to be a part of that.”

Each board member agreed that a nationwide superintendent search, which the district conducted when it hired Baugh, would be too much money spent unnecessarily.

“We have an absolutely wonderful internal candidate, and the time and cost is too great to have a national search,” said board member Sarah Daniels. “In fact, a national search was done four years ago when Dave was hired, and Tharyn was on the shortlist, and the national search was done for Roaring Fork, and Tharyn was also on that list. So if you think about national searches, the person who’s going to come out on top is already in our building.”

The school district will conduct interviews once the application closes. Finalists would likely be announced after a few weeks, Gieszl said.

The salary range for the superintendent position is $198,000-295,000, according to the job listing, which was read aloud during the board meeting. It would also include housing and other benefits.