Arsenault chosen as new school superintendent

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

Raymond Arsenault

GALLUP — In the end, it was his ideas on how to change the district that led members of the county public school district to choose Raymond Arsenault as its next superintendent.

Arsenault, who is currently dean of students at Cibola High School in Albuquerque, was the unanimous choice of the Gallup-McKinley County School Board at its regular meeting Monday.

He was one of four — including the current interim superintendent Esther Macias — who was up for the job. He was also one of the four who spent most of last week meeting with parents, teachers and community leaders at three meet and greet forums held throughout the district.

It took the school board less than 20 minutes in executive decision to chose Arsenault, who is now scheduled to take over the duties as school superintendent on July 1. The contract still has to be negotiated, but the district has been paying its superintendent in recent years between $115,000 and $120,000.

Macias is expected to return to being an elementary school principal, a position she held at Tobe Turpen elementary before being tapped for the interim position. School board officials said there was also a possibility that the new superintendent may want her to remain in a position in the central office.

School Board President Genevieve Jackson said there were a number of reasons that the school board members selected Arsenault over the other candidates including his talks about setting up leadership training within the school district to bring up the leadership abilities of people already on staff.he said he also received high marks by the review committee set up by the district to look at all of the superintendent candidates.

In his discussions during the meet and greets, Arsenault was also given high marks by many of those who attended for explaining how the Albuquerque School District addressed some of the problems facing this district and resolved them.

Brian Bernard, the president of the local teacher’s union, McFUSE, said union officials were happy with he process set up by the school district to select a new superintendent and especially the board’s decision to allow the union to be a part of that election process.

As a result, he said he felt all of the finalists were well qualified to hold the position.

“I’m especially glad that the decision was 5-0 in his favor,” Bernard said.