Macias named superintendent

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — With Karen White packed up and no longer superintendent, the Gallup-McKinley County School Board is looking to one of the district's principals to run the show, at least temporarily.

The board met for about 90 minutes Saturday, almost all of it in executive session, to interview four possible candidates for interim superintendent.

By a 4-1 vote, the board selected Esther Macias, principal at Tobe Turpen Elementary for the job. Bruce Tempest cast the only no vote.

Others who interviewed for the job were John Samford, assistant superintendent for business affairs; Theresa Mariano, assistant superintendent for personnel; and Ethel Manuelito, a former assistant superintendent who has spent the last year teaching special education at Tohatchi Elementary School.

Geneieve Jackson, who was acting as chairman of the board Saturday because Tempest was in Seattle and attending the meeting via phone, told Samford and Mariano that the main reason they where not chosen was because they were needed in their present positions.

Just how long Macias will serve as superintendent is up in the air.

The plans discussed in executive session were to have a short-time superintendent who would serve for about two months, giving the district time to find someone who would fill in as superintendent for the 2007-2008 school year. During that year a permanent superintendent would be hired.

The decision to buy out White's contract for one year's pay comes at a time when the talent pool for good superintendents is very low, since almost all of the good candidates would already have a job for next year or are in final negotiations with other school districts.

When this was discussed in open session, however, some on the board argued in favor of skipping the short-term superintendent and appointed Macias for the entire 2007-2008 school year.

But Macias said she was reluctant to commit to that long a period since she had promised "her babies," - the students enrolling in kindergarten at Tobe Turpen, that she would be around to see them through the fifth grade at the school, and if she was superintendent, she said she would miss them.

She did agree, however, to a 60-day stint as superintendent and if the board members really felt they needed her to stay longer, she would consider it.

No mention was made of increasing her salary during the time she was superintendent. Board members add that would have to be discussed at a later meeting.