Niles Community Schools is in the process of searching for a new superintendent to replace Interim Supt. Michael Lindley, who took over when former Supt. Richard Weigel resigned in February.

The school board has chosen six finalists for the job and is conducting public interviews with each finalist this week. On Monday, the first two finalists Christopher Daughtry and Terry Barker were interviewed.

Daniel Applegate and Joseph Majchrowicz will be interviewed Wednesday, while Michael Pettibone and Monte Moffett will be interviewed Thursday.

Interviews begin at 6 p.m. at the Westside Administrative Center, 111 Spruce St.

Central Noble leader ‘still a teacher at heart’

Superintendent finalist Christopher Daughtry said he wants to be the next leader at Niles Community Schools because he loves the area and believes it would be a great place to raise his children.

One of six finalists being interviewed this week by the district’s board of education, Daughtry has been superintendent at Central Noble Community School Corp. in Albion, Indiana, since Aug. of 2010.

He started out as a teacher more than 10 years ago — a job he said still influences his decisions today.

“I am still a teacher at heart,” said Daughtry during an hour-long public interview Monday evening with the school board. “I treat every decision like it’s based on my own children and I think that has helped me be successful at Central Noble.

“They may not always agree with every decision I make, but they know where it comes from and where my heart is.”

Central Noble is Daughtry’s first superintendent job, although he’s been a principal and director of transportation elsewhere. Daughtry said he was the fourth superintendent to be hired at Central Noble in five years.

“They had gone through a lot of change,” he said.

Since then, Daughtry said the district has improved. Central Noble’s middle school went from an “F” grade on the state report card to a “B” this past year. The district’s elementary schools have been graded at “A” the past two years and the entire district, which has about 1,200 students, received an overall “B” grade.

What changed?

Daughtry said he instituted an instructional model based on direct instruction and had teachers focus on finding key competencies students needed to know in order to perform better on state testing.

“We really focused hard on that and we achieved,” he said.

“It got people feeling good about what Central Noble was about and got our teachers feeling good about it.”

When asked if he’d be open to different methods at Niles, Daughtry said, “yes,” because no district is exactly alike.

“You have to cater it to the needs of the district before you go in guns a blazing and say, ‘This is what we will do. Follow me,’” he said. “You will turn around and see no one is following you.”

Daughtry, who served in the U.S. Air Force, said his most significant moment as an educator came several years ago when he was a third-grade teacher. He was twice invited to a special dinner where graduating seniors brought their favorite teachers.

“To me that was significant because I had done something in third grade that they remembered all the way when they were a senior in high school,” he said. “To me that was more important than anything else you could have in education.”

 

Mishawaka’s Barker looking to leave Indiana

City School Mishawaka Supt. Terry Barker said he would not have applied for the Niles superintendent job if Indiana weren’t changing its retirement system.

“If things were to have stayed as they were I would’ve had asked for continuous extension (at Mishawaka),” said Barker during Monday’s public interview.

He said the change is causing him to look for a job in other states.

“My heroes are guys that are still doing this in their 70s. As long as you are still making a difference… you just keep doing it,” he said.

“Niles presents an opportunity to continue to serve kids, work with teachers and the community to further public education.”

Located less than 15 miles to the south of Niles, City School Mishawaka has a student body of approximately 5,000 students, so it is about 1,000 students larger than Niles Community Schools.

Barker has been a superintendent there since 2011 after working as a superintendent in three other places for no more than four years at a time.

While at Mishawaka, Barker said he helped improve the high school to an “A” grade on the state report card after it was an “F” five years ago. The district’s schools are all graded at a “C” or better, he said, for the first time in more than 12 years.

“I think part of that comes from holding the ladder, providing stability, letting people climb, get better and realize and know that I am there to support,” he said.

Barker described himself as an outgoing person who likes to get involved in the community in which he works by attending sporting events and joining civic organizations.

“I’ve tried to find that place where I can fit into the community, make a difference, be present and be accessible,” he said.

Barker spoke about how Mishawaka schools is working to overcome a failed $28 million referendum in the fall that would’ve paid for district-wide improvements. He said the district made some mistakes, including not being as transparent as possible.

“What we wanted to do was open up lines of communication and include more people and give more people a voice at the table,” he said.

A significant achievement of his involved helping create a table tennis club at a school in which he was principal. A student who joined the club went on to play doubles for the United States in the 2004 Summer Olympics.

“Because of a serendipitous act of saying, ‘Let’s do this because it’s good for kids,’ Mark (Hazinski) had the opportunity to travel the world,” Barker said. “When I talk about finding opportunities for kids that’s what you do.”