School Board plans to hire associate superintendent

The Perry County District No. 32 School Board of Education took the first steps to finding a new superintendent. Andy Comstock, the current superintendent of Perry County Schools, recently made his intentions known to retire at the end of the 2022-2023 school year.
To find his successor, the school board approved the next steps in the process of which they chose from three options in a special session on Oct. 27.
The option the board chose was to look for and hire a suitable candidate. That person would then be an associate superintendent and learn the inner workings of the district with the hopes of becoming the permanent replacement for Comstock when he eventually retires. There will be no restructuring at this time.
“It’s kind of a try it before you buy it scenario,” District 32 Board President Jamie Robinson said. “We can get a feel for that person versus them just coming in cold and hoping for the best.”
Comstock said when he stepped into the superintendent position at Perry County Schools he did not have any overlap with the previous superintendent.
“We have already started on the calendar for next school year,” Comstock said. “There are a lot of things that are going on so that we can be ready for the next year. It would be helpful for that new person to be part of those discussions. I didn’t have that and it took me about six months to figure out what is going on. The idea is to keep the ball rolling and not have a lag.”
Robinson agreed with that assessment.
“I know how long it took for Andy to wrap his head around the budget,” Robinson said. “I think we are better off from a budget standpoint then we were previously. Now that it is in decent shape it would be great for Andy to explain the finer points to this new person and shortens the learning curve in all aspects.”

The biggest point of contention among the board was how many quality candidates would want a promise of the associate superintendent position without the promise of it becoming permanent at the end of the one year?
“If there are a pool of current superintendents in other districts that want to move, are they going to give that up for an associate position that may or may not be permanent?” Board vice president Mary Bauwens said.
Comstock drew on his own experiences of being a superintendent at other districts to answer that question.
“When I was the superintendent at Meadow Heights, I was offered to go back home to Sikeston in the assistant superintendent position for the job I had left,” Comstock said. “It was a goal of mine to be the first graduate of Sikeston to be the superintendent. However, when I moved here, I liked it here and didn’t want to move back.”
The district will have Missouri School Board Association aid in the search for the new position.
“I have talked to them and they said that school districts our size do this often.
The district used the service before and plans to utilize it again.
“They do most of the leg work so that you only get candidates that meet the criteria and set up all the meetings,” Robinson said. “They made the process painless.”