The Board of Education’s search for a replacement to take over the superintendent position after Pam Sloan retires at the end of the year has finally come to a conclusion. The Board of Education went with the decision to name Mary Hendricks-Harris as the new superintendent. Hendricks-Harris has been serving with the district for 10 years.

She will take over for Sloan at the start of the 2016-17 school year. Hendricks-Harris is currently the Chief Academic Officer of FHSD. The announcement came last Thursday, Feb. 4, at the FHSD Administrative Building, where Hendricks-Harris was introduced to everyone at a board meeting, concluding a long search process that took almost five months to draw a conclusion. Sloan announced her retirement on Sept. 18 of last year.

“[I’m] just so excited and honored,” Hendricks-Harris said. “It’s very humbling to know that of all the people that could run this district that I was selected.”

There were two other finalists for the job who were also interviewed on Jan. 26 and Jan. 27. There were over 20 applicants for the job, and the district had to condense the pool as much as possible. The district declined to release the names of the other finalists. The board ultimately chose her because she had the characteristics that they were looking for.

“One of the things the board did before we started interviewing was we looked at the characteristics of what we thought the new superintendent would be,” board member Mike Sommer said. “The board was in agreement with a lot of those characteristics.”

Hendricks-Harris will have many different situations to deal with, most notably the need for budgetary changes within the district, after the failure of Proposition Y this summer, and after the board decided to not try for another tax levy this spring.

The superintendent will also have to deal with many other situations, such as playing a part in the decision to call a snow day, as well as overseeing and managing district operations.

“[Hendricks-Harris will have to] make sure that we maintain our high standard of academic performance,” Sloan said. “An additional challenge she is going to be facing with that is the financial pressure that we’re under right now, so I think that will be something that they’re going to have to continue to solve and figure out in the short term, so that will be some of the most pressing business when she takes over.”

Overall, the Board of Education as well as Hendricks-Harris seem confident that her appointment will be the right choice for the district and that she will have a successful tenure at the helm of FHSD.

“One of the things that I’m excited to do is to work on next year’s strategic plan,” Hendricks-Harris said. “I love to work with different groups of people, so being able to bring people in and talk about where we’re going to go with the next five-year plan.”