District 30 begins superintendent search

The District 30 Board of Education has begun its search to find a new superintendent, after Dr. Elaine Kanas announced that she will be leaving to head another Nassau County school district.

Kanas was appointed by the East Williston Board of Education on June 6 to lead the 1,800-student district, which includes the Wheatley School, consistently ranked among the top high schools in the nation. She has been in Valley Stream for four years. 

“This was not an easy thing for me,” she said of her decision. “It’s very hard leaving Valley Stream.”

Kanas will remain with District 30 through the end of July. The Board of Education hopes to choose a successor by then. 

While she said she was not actively looking for another job, Kanas was asked to apply to East Williston, and was interested in leading a district that encompasses kindergarten through 12th grade. District 30 is kindergarten through sixth grade. “It was an opportunity that just kind of came to me,” she said. 

Kanas was chosen from nearly 40 applicants to lead East Williston. Her appointment received unanimous support from the five-member board. As is the case in District 30, she will oversee three schools. But instead of three elementary buildings, East Williston has an elementary, a middle and a high school. 

Before coming to Valley Stream, Kanas was an assistant superintendent for the Carmel Central Schools in Putnam County, which is also a K-12 district. “I do miss the middle school and the high school piece of it,” she said.

The District 30 Board of Education has already set a timeline for its superintendent search. Two community meetings were scheduled for this week, at which members of the public can offer input on what they would like to see in the next superintendent. Board members will not attend the meetings; they will be led by other community leaders who will share the public’s feedback with the board. “We want people to express themselves without the board standing over them,” board President Elise Antonelli said.

The position was advertised in last Sunday’s New York Times as well as on various professional websites, and the deadline for applications is June 25. The board will then begin interviewing candidates, with the hope of identifying finalists by July 6. Antonelli said that feedback from this week’s forums would guide the board in its selection of the top candidates.

The finalists will meet with an advisory committee consisting of administrators, teachers, staff and parents, which will make a recommendation to the board. “It’s the goal of the board to have the community involved as much as possible,” Antonelli said.

The board expects to make a selection by July 16, and to appoint the new superintendent at a special meeting on July 26. Antonelli said that the time frame is tight but realistic. “There are some viable candidates out there,” she said. “We are [also] hoping that some internal candidates will apply.”

She added that the board did not want to have an interim superintendent, a route it took five years ago when longtime Superintendent Lawrence McGoldrick retired. The district had an interim schools chief for nine months while the search that led to Kanas’s hiring was under way. 

An interim superintendent is a placeholder, Antonelli said, and the board wants a permanent superintendent who can pick up where Kanas leaves off. “We really want to keep the district moving forward,” Antonelli said.

The board also decided against using a search firm, which would have cost upward of $20,000. Antonelli said that she and several board members have experience with superintendent searches — she and Ken Cummings have been through it twice, in 2008 in District 30 and last year in the high school district.

She acknowledged that the district could need an interim superintendent if there is a gap between when Kanas leaves and when the new schools chief can start — unless a candidate from within the district is chosen. She explained that the goal is to have a new superintendent at least identified before Kanas departs. 

Antonelli added that while board members were worried that they would someday lose Kanas to a bigger district, they didn’t think it would be so soon. “We were rather shocked. It came as a big surprise,” she said. “She’s pushed us forward in ways we’ve never pushed forward before.”

Kanas is leaving with four years remaining on her contract, after she signed a five-year contract extension last summer. She received a five-year deal with East Williston.