Board confirms Lundy as new superintendent, starts July 1

Members of the Medford Area Public School District board made things official on Monday night with the vote to accept the personnel report including Laura Lundy as the next school district administrator.

She will take over the position formally on July 1 and will receive a salary of $140,000 for 235 contract days.

Board members also gave input into the decision making process and why the choice was made to skip from the initial interviews to offering Lundy the position.

District administrator Pat Sullivan said the original plan was to screen the pool of applicants and narrow it down to two or three people and have those finalists come to the board and a community forum.

However, the district only received four total applications for the position with one of those withdrawing due to getting a job at another district.

Fleegel explained that following the initial interviews it was clear that Lundy’s qualifications were superior to the other two applicants. “There wasn’t a lot of challenge there,” he said, noting that the other candidates were highly qualified, but that Lundy was just a higher caliber.

Board member Don Everhard agreed and said he felt it would be giving someone false hope when 80% of the panel was decided on hiring Lundy after the initial interview last week. “It would be deceitful to do that to them,” he said.

Everhard said things would have been different if there had been a much larger pool of candidates applying for the position or if the other applicants had been closer to Lundy in qualifications.

“It is not the district deciding to do a switcheroo,” Everhard said.

Board member Jodi Nuernberger agreed and said that Lundy met all the qualifications they were looking for. It was noted that all three of the applicants met district qualifications, but that Lundy was the best of the three candidates. In other personnel action, board members accepted the resignation of MASH Social Studies teacher Corey Nazer who plans on focusing on his business producing fishing baits. He will be done at the end of the current school year. “This job has been a gift. It has given me as much, if not perhaps more than I have given it. Because of this job I have been able to matter in thousands of kids’ lives. I have been able to positively influence students’ education, career paths and perceptions of the “real world.” Because of this job, I was able to meet my wife. I have been able to become a trusted member of this community. I was able to travel the world with students. I was able to work with students to build a very significant addition to our veterans memorial. I was able to assemble a network of lifelong friends. And perhaps most importantly I was given the opportunity to get out of bed every morning looking forward to something that never felt like work,” Nazer wrote in his resignation letter.

Other resignations include Jason Lang/ MAMS Girls Head Track Coach & Grade 8 Football Coach; Delaney Skelding/ MASH School Social Worker/ end of 2023-24 school year; Amy Koch/ SES Occupational Therapist/ end of 2023-24 school year; Brianna Fisher/ MAMS Spanish Teacher/ end of 2023-24 school year; Erin Wojcik/ MAMS Grade 8 Volleyball Coach; and Becky Goodrich/ Executive Assistant Human Resources/ effective June 30.