The finalists are William Collins, Irwin Sussman, Ruth Miller and Brian Salzer.
NORTHAMPTON – The principal of a Southampton elementary school and a previous finalist for the Northampton superintendent of schools jobs are among the four candidates the School Committee will interview for the post the second time around.
The committee announced Thursday that it had winnowed a field of 23 applicants down to William Collins, the principal of the William E. Norris School in Southampton, Irwin H. Sussman, superintendent of the Hadley-Luzerne Central School District in upstate New York, Ruth Miller, the assistant superintendent of the Narragansett Regional School District in Templeton and Brian Salzer, acting superintendent of the Marblehead Public Schools.
School Committee Vice Chairwoman Stephanie Pick said a search committee had narrowed the field to eight applicants, three of whom subsequently withdrew. The committee then chose the final four.
This is the committee’s second attempt to choose a replacement for Isabelina Rodriguez, who left the Northampton superintendent’s post in January to head the Granby school system. William Erickson has been serving as interim superintendent.
In March, the committee selected Sussman and Daniel J. Hanneken as its two finalists, but elected to begin the process over again when it came to light that Hanneken was not the principal of a middle school in Marlborough as his resume indicated.
The School Committee spent part of Thursday’s meeting fine tuning a list of questions they plan to ask each candidate. The committee hopes to expedite the process so its members can visit the candidates’ workplaces while the school year is still in session. Each candidate will also be invited to spend a day in Northampton meeting with parents and teachers. The advertised salary range for the post is $122,000-$140,000.