Acting Superintendent Michael Hardy has recommended that the State College Area school board name Jason Perrin as interim assistant to the superintendent, Hardy said Wednesday.
Speaking with StateCollege.com, Hardy said Perrin would assume, on a temporary basis, the responsibilities that Hardy handled as assistant superintendent. Perrin is currently the principal at Mount Nittany Middle School in Boalsburg, where he has worked for nearly a decade.
The school board promoted Hardy from assistant superintendent to acting superintendent on Dec. 6, following the resignation of former Superintendent Richard Mextorf.
Mextorf has been charged with DUI in Clinton County, where authorities recorded his blood-alcohol level at 0.316 percent on Nov. 18. State College school-board members have agreed to launch a thorough search for a new chief executive; they hope to name one before the 2011-2012 school year, spokeswoman Julie Miller has said.
Meanwhile, the district leadership remains ‘excited about the challenges that face us,’ Hardy said Wednesday. (He said the conversation marked his first news-media interview since he was named acting, or interim, superintendent.)
‘Personally, I wouldn’t have accepted the opportunity without knowing the district and without knowing the quality of the people’ here, Hardy said, He said he feels ‘a great deal of obligation’ to the district and its people.
‘We need to move forward,’ Hardy said, ‘ … and that’s absolutely what we’re doing.’
His recommendation to promote Perrin as interm assistant to the superintendent, Hardy said, would set off a domino effect at Mount Nittany Middle School.
There, he said, he also has recommended that the school board temporarily promote assistant principal Brian Ishler to the principal role. Ishler is a former building principal in the Penns Valley school district and a former State College Area High School administrator.
In addition, Hardy has recommended that the district advertise to fill the assistant-principal role at Mount Nittany Middle School, also on an interim basis.
The school board is expected to vote on all three human-resources recommendations at its Monday meeting. Hardy said the arrangement seems ‘to be the best and most logical’ way to handle the personnel situation.
While the district has ‘great principals’ throughout its system, Hardy said, promoting one from the middle-school level appears to be the lowest-impact move. Elementary-school principals are facing a variety of new initiatives right now and have already seen organizational changes in the past year, he said. Likewise, the high school has seen a leadership reconfiguration in the past year, as well.
The personnel approach that Hardy has developed involves ‘probably the least number of moves’ possible, he said. He expects that he, Perrin and Ishler will return to their respective positions once a new superintendent is hired, he indicated.
‘I feel very comfortable in the competence of everyone on the entire administrative team,’ Hardy said. He said Perrin is very bright, easy to work with and a quick learner.
‘He understands quickly,’ Hardy said. ‘I really look forward to that type of support. I feel very comfortable with that.’
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