Top CPS principal candidate to visit island
Search on for new NES principal
BY STEVE SHEPPARD INDEPENDENT WRITER
Ideally, schools superintendent Dr. Robert Pellicone would like to have a new principal in place by July, two months before the start of the school year.

That could be the case at the Cyrus Peirce School, where a candidate who is the unanimous choice of the search committee will visit the island in two weeks. Pellicone and the committee have had several months to interview prospective principals for that school because outgoing CPS principal Lynn Kalman announced her resignation in 2006.

For the elementary school, however, last week's announcement by Paul Koulouris that he would step down this year means that Pellicone and the school committee have a decidedly shorter timeframe with which to work.

Pellicone said Monday that he will not rush the hiring of a new elementary school principal, and that there are no candidates for the position at the moment. "It has to be the right match," he said. "We have to find somebody who's comfortable with us and who we're comfortable with."

The superintendent has placed ads in the Boston Globe and in the national publication "Education Week." He addressed elementary school parents about the selection process Monday night.

Acandidate for the assistant principal position at the elementary school has been invited back for a second round of interviews, but Pellicone said that in light of the search for a new principal he and the school committee need to decide soon "whether to bring it forward or collapse the search. That is a question mark right now."

The Cyrus Peirce School principal candidate is from Wisconsin and, says Pellicone, is "a veteran in the field. If we like her and she likes us, then we'll travel to Wisconsin" as the next step. The Cyrus Peirce School search committee is composed of Pellicone, assistant superintendent Dr. Carlos Colley, parents and staff. A similar committee will be assembled

for the elementary school principal search. I