By By ERIN VER BERKMOES / Niles Daily Star
NILES - The Brandywine Community Schools are moving closer to finding a candidate to fill the middle school/high school principal position which was left open when Chris Banaszak took a job with the South Bend School Corporation.
On Monday, Gary Rider, superintendent of the Brandywine Community Schools and two teachers - Jim Deruick, high school, and Connie Hughey, middle school - made a site visit to the community of one candidate they feel may be the right person for the job.
He said at least one site visit is performed to talk with people who work with the candidate and "get another perspective on the candidate."
Rider said three finalists remain. School board president Jim Curran said initially the school system worked from a "good pool" of candidates.
Rider said candidate names are not being released prior to hiring to avoid causing problems for candidates with their current employers.
Rider, who is attending a superintendent's conference this week, said by phone that more information on a finalist for the job will be available near the end of this week.
In other business the Board approved a 2.15 percent increase in the wages of the districts administrators and secretaries. The measure is retroactive back to July 1, 2005.
The Board also received an update on the district wide construction project.
Rider stated to the board many of the projects are nearing competition and that at the middle/high school the remaining punch list items are being completed.
The district is also looking at how to spend its remaining contingency funds and have gotten a list of furniture, fixtures and equipment which staff would like to see purchased with the funds, according to Rider.
Finally Rider and the Board recognized the efforts of the districts students in raising funds for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Students at Brandywine Elementary were able to collect nearly $200 in a change drive, the students the middle/high school had a penny war and collected $300 and the students at Merritt Elementary collected $3,181.