Interviews to Begin for Superintendent

Candidates for superintendent of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District will be interviewed today and Saturday by the school board and a communitywide volunteer panel.

James M. Ferryman, president of the school board, declined to say how many of the 51 applicants have been selected for interviews. The process is being conducted in secret because many of the candidates are school administrators in California and other states who don’t want their employers to know they are applying elsewhere, he said.

After the interviews, the committee of teachers, parents, students and others will forward its impressions to the board, which is expected to narrow the list of semifinalists again and conduct another round of interviews.

The new superintendent will be selected by June 8 and announced a week later, after the school board visits the finalist’s district to check references.

The new school chief will replace Mac Bernd, who left the district in December to run the school system in Arlington, Texas. Ferryman said the nationwide superintendent search, headed by the recruiting department of the California School Boards Assn., is expected to cost nearly $25,000.