By Carol Britton Meyer

At least 15 applicants are in the running to become Hull’s next superintendent of schools. Following Monday’s deadline for submitting applications for the position, the newly-created screening committee is scheduled to meet for the first time tonight [Thursday] to begin its work.

Superintendent of Schools Judith Kuehn is retiring at the end of the current school year. The final selection is expected to be made by Jan. 22, with an anticipated start date of July 1.

“There’s been a huge response – it’s very positive,” school committee member Kyle Conley reported this week. “The screening committee, comprised of volunteers, will have a heavy lift sifting through all the applications and doing the initial interviews. They will use the candidate profile resulting from input provided from the Oct. 19 focus groups as the criteria to move forward with certain [ones].”

At least 15 completed applications had been received before Thanksgiving, with several other candidates who needed to submit additional information by this week’s deadline in order to be considered.

Conley said she’s “very confident we will find a very great next superintendent” and in moving forward with the process under the leadership of the New England School Development Council, which was hired to facilitate the search. NESDEC consultant Dr. Margaret Frieswyk will provide the screening committee with an orientation to start off the process at the first meeting.

After NESDEC reviews the applications that have been received, the screening committee will conduct preliminary interviews of the selected candidates between Dec. 11 and 15. The finalists are expected to be announced at the Dec. 18 school committee meeting. (The committee’s planned Dec. 11 meeting has been canceled.) The school committee will conduct the finalist interviews between Jan. 10 and 19.

NESDEC will set up the interviews and notify candidates of the status for both the screening committee and school committee interviews.

In other business at the meeting, Kuehn said a draft memorandum of understanding between the school department and the town for use of the Memorial Middle School after the school consolidation process is complete is “in progress,” and that the process has been “very successful” so far. An agreement would be required to move some municipal services into that building, which will remain under the control of the schools.

At the conclusion of Monday’s meeting, the school committee met in executive session to prepare for negotiations with the superintendent, and held a joint executive session with the select board to discuss legal strategy related to former Superintendent Michael Devine’s wrongful termination lawsuit.

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