Soap Lake hires school district superintendent

SOAP LAKE — After months of searching, the Soap Lake school board members found a new superintendent.

Former Touchet School District superintendent Dan McDonald starts as Soap Lake superintendent July 1. The board voted to hire McDonald at a board meeting after the community, staff and board members interviewed each candidate.

“This (decision) has been made after about two weeks of work,” said Newton Moats, board president. “The board could see through interviews that he possessed the experience we felt was going to be helpful in setting some new goals for our district.”

The school district has been looking to hire someone for the full-time position since last spring. Denise Mehal acted as interim superintendent until the final decision was made.

“We had 15 candidates that we narrowed down to four,” Moats explained. “The four went through a vigorous interview process with the board, staff and the consulting team we hired.”

The four candidates were Martin Brewer, McDonald, Jeff Pietila and Denise Mehal. Brewer is a principal from Lewis and Clark Elementary School in Richland and Pietila is a principal at Wahluke school in Mattawa.

“We really had a great group of candidates and we appreciate all they went through during the interview process,” Moats said.

The community was also involved in the interview process. About 15 people attended a community interview meeting to speak to each candidate.

Attendees had time to fill out a feedback form after talking to each candidate. Board members are using the forms to help make a decision on a new superintendent.

Questions on the form included, what did you like about the candidate, what did you not like and would this person make a good superintendent?

“The public and staff’s comments on their forms were in support of McDonald,” Moats said. “After reading all the comments and reflecting on the involvement community members had, I think that, all-in-all, everyone is satisfied with the decision.”

Board members felt McDonald had the best qualifications to take on the superintendent role.

“The board themselves were looking at experience level and ability level,” Moats said. “Since Dan was already a superintendent, he was more than experienced for the position. We also looked at leadership qualities and his shown through during the interviews.”

McDonald’s personality fits in well with Soap Lake staff and students, Moats said.

“He seems to have a calm, confident demeanor and had a good understanding of the needs of our district,” Moats said.

Contact negotiations for McDonald begin next week.

“It feels good to be done with the search process,” Moats said. “It’s been a long time working out this position, deciding if it should be full time of part time and who should take it on. We are excited with the decision and look forward to establishing goals for the future and getting back to focusing fully on our kids.”

Originally published March 15, 2010