Clear Stream principal hired

The District 30 Board of Education hired John Singleton as the new principal of Clear Stream Avenue School on Monday night, to replace Helene Levine, who is leaving at the end of the year.

After his appointment, several parents and teachers defended the search process that brought Singleton to the district, which was criticized by a pair of board members last month. At the March 22 board meeting, trustees Cristobal Stewart and Carolyn Pean said they had not received enough information from district administration about the finalists for the position. Stewart also said that he wanted to ensure that qualified minority candidates were being equally considered for positions.

Richard Mansfield, a fifth-grade teacher at Clear Stream Avenue School, took exception to those remarks after reading Stewart’s comments in the Herald. Mansfield sat on the search committee for the new principal. “The entire committee agreed that our purpose was to find simply the best candidate for our children,” he said, “not just set out to choose an applicant solely based on gender, race or ethnicity. To suggest that we should do otherwise is downright offensive to me.”

There were 132 applicants for the position and 21 came in for an interview with Superintendent Dr. Elaine Kanas. She narrowed that down to five, who then met with a search committee consisting of teachers and parents from Clear Stream Avenue. They developed questions for each of the candidates and had criteria to rate each objectively. The five also met with a group of central administrators. Kanas then selected the top two finalists.

Of the five finalists, three were minorities, noted Kanas. Out of a pool of 21 candidates, 15 were minority. As part of its strategic plan, the district has initiated a diversity hiring initiative to recruit more minority candidates for its teaching, administrative and other jobs.