District 97 Supt. Albert Roberts will hire his first principal next year since taking over as superintendent in the summer of 2010.
Principal Victoria Sharts will retire at the end of the current school year after 16 years at Percy Julian Middle School. Sharts is among the longest current serving principals in the district. Speaking to Wednesday Journal last week, Roberts said the selection process will begin in January.
Roberts praised Sharts’ leadership, saying she will be a difficult person to replace. Roberts, however, said he’s looking for a candidate to help take the school to even newer heights.
As for the kind of principal he’s looking to hire, the superintendent said he wants someone who’s a good communicator and listener, as well as a risk-taker who’s willing to try new things, among other qualities. It will be a national search, he adds, though internal candidates can apply.
“Internal candidates are welcome, but the selection criteria and the leadership profile we’re developing will be the key,” Roberts said. “Certainly we have highly-qualified educators in our school district as well as outside. It won’t be a decision of internal or external but it will be a decision as to who best fits the criteria we need to lead Julian into the future.”
The Julian job, including a leadership profile, will be published in January and the recruitment process is scheduled to begin the following month. The last D97 schools to hire principals were Holmes and Longfellow in 2007 — Sue Hackmiller and Angela Dolezal, respectively. The last middle school principal hire was Tom Sindelar in 2005 at Gwendolyn Brooks.
Roberts’ timeline for Julian includes the selection of three finalists by May and a final recommendation to the board in June of 2012. The interviewing of candidates is scheduled to begin in April. When asked if the finalists would be made public, Roberts said he hadn’t made that determination yet but stressed the district will be transparent throughout the entire process. Roberts, though, said that determination will likely be made after the three finalists are chosen.
Sharts was an assistant principal at a middle school in Urbana before coming to Julian.
Her tenure in D97 included overseeing the construction of the new Julian school building in 2002.
