Dan Applegate has been chosen to lead Niles Community Schools as its next superintendent, beating out a pool of 23 candidates. Applegate was not in attendance at Thursday’s special meeting and was not immediately available to comment.

The Niles Board of Education voted 7 to 0 Thursday night to offer the South Bend, Indiana, man the job.

Assuming a contract can be agreed upon, Applegate will take over for Interim Superintendent Michael Lindley at a date yet to be determined.

“We have looked at a ton of people and a lot of applicants that didn’t fit and I feel like the final three candidates really fit the bill for what we were looking for,” said Greg O’Toole, school board president. “We’ve alluded to the fact that we had certain criteria that we wanted to fill… I think Dr. Applegate fits that and he is my first choice.”

Board member Jeff Curry said they’ve received numerous emails and heard from several people who supported Applegate throughout the process. Seven people spoke in favor of Applegate prior to his interview with the board Wednesday.

“I liken it to the movie, ‘Rudy,’ where they came in and dropped his jersey on the coach’s desk and said, ‘Put Rudy in the game,’” Curry said. “That’s what happened (Wednesday) night in Niles.”

Teacher’s Union President Kathy Elsner said the feedback she received from teachers has been in complete support of Applegate.

“I think the staff will be very pleased and happy with the board’s decision,” Elsner said. “I look forward to working with him and to a very fruitful relationship.”

Oak Manor Sixth Grade Principal Molly Brawley also agreed with the board’s decision.

“When I heard Dr. Applegate had applied my heart soared,” Brawley said. “He is just an awesome, awesome person. He has the highest level of integrity, intelligence and approachability. But No. 1 is kids come first with him.”

While the board was unified in its 7-0 vote, board member Kathy Zeider said her top choice was Chris Daughtry prior to the vote. She was the only board member without Applegate as a first choice.

“He (Daughtry) said over and over again that he would come to Niles and bring his family,” she said. “He trusted us as a community to educate his four children. I found that above and beyond a faith and a trust he put in us.”

Applegate returns to a district he is very familiar with.

He was housed at Niles while working as a school psychologist for Berrien RESA from 1998 to 2008. Niles then hired him as their director of special education in 2008 before promoting him to director of instruction in 2010.

He left the district in 2013 to take a job as the assessment and accreditation coordinator at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana.

Applegate provided insight into what he hopes to accomplish in his first 100 days on the job during his second public interview Wednesday with the school board.

The first is working on removing Ballard Elementary School from the state’s list of Focus Schools by eliminating its student achievement gap.

“I know we are doing some nice interventions there and I am behind the interventions that are there,” he said, “but we need to know they are working and if there are other things we can do.”

The second thing would be building relationships throughout the district.

“That needs to start almost immediately, if not immediately,” he said. “That is going to take some difficult conversations that need to occur in the first 90 days.”

Applegate will also begin collecting “a lot of data and information” so he can begin talking about the district’s goals with the school board.

“I am going to look at the data and see where we need to look a little deeper and have conversations around that,” he said.

“It’s all centered around what I think is the most pressing need for kids.”

The Niles school board spent the last two weeks interviewing candidates. They began with six finalists before narrowing the list to three and bringing them back for a second round of interviews and tour of the district this week.

The other two finalists were Mike Pettibone, retired superintendent of Adams Central Community Schools in Monroe, Indiana; and Daughtry, superintendent of Central Noble Community Schools in Albion, Indiana.

Lindley took the job as interim superintendent after former superintendent Richard Weigel resigned in February.