The Carpinteria Unified School District needs a new superintendent now that longtime schools chief Paul Cordeiro has left for Santa Clarita.
Cordeiro, who led the Carpinteria district for almost 10 years, took a job with the Newhall School District at the end of January. He worked there before, from 2000 to 2005, and returned Feb. 1 as superintendent. There wasn’t much warning for his departure, as Cordeiro accepted the job in early December, according to The Santa Clarita Valley Signal newspaper.
Carpinteria school trustees voted to hire Jeff Chancer as interim superintendent while the district looks for a permanent replacement. Chancer, who started Feb. 2, is a Carpinteria local but new to the district.
“I want to hand it off to the new person in as good a shape as I can,” Chancer told Noozhawk.
Chancer retired from the Oxnard School District in mid-2013, after serving about two years, and worked as an assistant superintendent in the Ventura Unified School District for eight years before that.
As the temporary head of Carpinteria schools, his job is to smooth the transition for the new superintendent and keep things running in the meantime, he said.
To find that new person, the school board brought on a consulting firm, Dave Long & Associates of Laguna Beach, and will discuss the recruitment advertising at this week’s meeting, Chancer said.
“It’s probably the board’s biggest job, its biggest responsibility, hiring a superintendent,” he said.
The district hopes to have a superintendent start July 1.
Even though Chancer isn’t making changes in his months at the helm, the district has a lot to do, including moving forward with the recently passed general obligation bond, handling the first year of Common Core State Standards student testing, and negotiating with various unions and labor groups.
Last November, voters passed a $90-million general obligation bond for capital improvements, and the district is now developing the citizen oversight committee. It’s the nine-school district’s first bond measure in 20 years and community members advocated strongly for it.
— Noozhawk news editor Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
