Clarke Community School District has a new curriculum director.
During an Aug. 11 school board meeting, Clarke Superintendent Steve Seid recommended Lance Ridgely to fill the position of curriculum director starting Aug. 12.
His annual salary and days are prorated for the 2014-15 school year based on $80,000 and 240 days.
The contract is a one year contract. The curriculum director is an administrative position.
The board approved Ridgely’s contract during the meeting.
Previous candidate
If Ridgely’s name sounds somewhat familiar to Clarke Community School District, that’s because it is.
In April, Ridgely was named one of the top three candidates in the search for the Clarke superintendent position. The position was awarded to Seid.
“Do you think this is a good choice?” asked Steve O’Tool, Clarke school board member, during the meeting.
“Yes. We’ve had more than conversation,” Seid said. “The last conversation that we had with Lance included the administrative team, with the exception of Jill (Kiger), she was on vacation. We had some very good discussions around his experience with this. He’d been a curriculum director before — what he could bring to this team, what he could bring to this district. And, he’s very eager to get started. He emailed me this morning wanting to know the outcomes of this evening. He’s ready to go, if and when approved.”
Seid said Ridgely’s previous curriculum director experience was at Earlham.
Stability
O’Tool said the curriculum director position at Clarke has been a position that hasn’t been stable with longevity within the school district.
On June 23, the school board approved the resignation of Tom Roff, the district’s previous director of curriculum and instruction, during a board meeting.
Roff had only been in the school district for one year.
In a resignation letter to the board, Roff said he would be returning to his hometown of Pleasantville to be an elementary school principal.
“Realistically, that was, we were behind the eight ball initially, and so he (Ridgely) realizes that,” Seid said. “In fact, he was asking me to kind of catch him up on some things that potentially he would need to get started on ASAP.”