MHUSD Board of Education President Don Moody

A candidate to lead Morgan Hill’s schools has been selected, but
not announced after a fruitful visit to the man’s current school
district Thursday.
A candidate to lead Morgan Hill’s schools has been selected, but not announced after a fruitful visit to the man’s current school district Thursday. The board will now begin contract negotiations for the tentative new superintendent. Morgan Hill Unified School District Board President Don Moody expects this to take about two weeks.

“It was an excellent trip. We feel pretty darn good about our choice. Nothing new surfaced, no concerns surfaced. Many of the things that we liked about the candidate were validated by the people that we spoke to,” Moody said, adding that the top finalist’s coworkers’ assessments mirrored the board’s impression of him.

“People will be pleased,” he said. That said, Moody said the candidate is “not too good to be true.”

Controversial superintendent Dr. Alan Nishino retired in June. Nishino was criticized as a divisive, unapproachable leader by parents and teachers. Taking into account a 41-page report detailing what 40 community groups wanted to see in the district’s new leader, the board made collaboration a centerpiece in the brochure about the top post.

This candidate was chosen out of the top two choices. The board and a leader from each of the district’s three labor groups interviewed these finalists during a closed session last Monday, after bringing in six candidates for initial interviews the Saturday before. In total, search firm The Cosca Group received 21 applications for the post. Many of them were from the Bay Area.

Federation of Teachers President Theresa Sage, who was one of the three interviewers, said she was looking forward to working with either candidate.

Moody declined to say what he or the board hoped to see in the new leader’s contract, saying he didn’t want to harm negotiations.

Nishino enjoyed a three year contract with one especially controversial caveat. If the board rated his performance in the prior year as satisfactory or better, he got a 3 percent merit raise. His starting salary in July 2005 was $185,000. His ending salary was $206,000, an 11 percent increase in four years.

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