School District Poised to Select New Superintendent This Week

 The is poised to select a new permanent superintendent and is considering some familiar names for the job. 

At a special closed session meeting on Thursday, the board will interview two candidates, Acting Superintendent Adolfo Melara and former SSFUSD Superintendent George Kozitza. The board will likely select its choice on Thursday after the interviews, according to Board President Maurice Goodman.

Goodman said the board chose to forego a search process for financial considerations, and instead selected candidates familiar with the district.

“Right now, if we were to do a search firm, it could be from $17,000 to $25,000,” he said. “And so we decided to interview two candidates that we believe are qualified.”

If the board doesn’t select either candidate, it will probably hire a search firm, Goodman said.

Board clerk Philip Weise said the board was united in its decision not to pursue a wide search.

“You basically get a list of candidates who on paper look wonderful, but then it turns out they’re highly misrepresented in terms of their capabilities and their abilities,” Weise said of the superintendent searches in which he’s participated. “Because of their lengthy contracts and their high salaries, it is often quite expensive to get rid of them.”

The district has been without a superintendent since December, when former Superintendent Howard Cohen for undisclosed reasons. Adolfo Melara, previously the associate superintendent, has been serving as acting superintendent since then. George Kozitza served as superintendent prior to the term of Barbara Olds.

Weise said he hopes Melara will stay with the district even if he isn’t selected for the superintendent job. 

“I would very much like to retain him if he were not selected, which is a big if,” Weise said. “But in my opinion, he’s been doing an excellent job in his current position.”

Goodman said the most important qualification is “their ability to continue the reforms that we’re making and doing so within the economic situation the state is in right now.”