By Shelby Stewart-Soldan
Staff Writer
During its regular meeting on Sept. 26, the Oxford Board of Education discussed the impending search for a new superintendent. The current superintendent, Dr. Vickie Markavitch, is working in the interim.
“As we know, Dr. Markavitch gave us a little bit of time, and we squeezed a bit more time out of her, and I don’t know how much more squeezing we can do,” said board president Heather Shafer. “We’re going to have to look into our calendars and start opening some time up for a superintendent search, which most of this board has not done before. It’s time consuming and we need to stay organized.”
Markavitch has been with the district since December of 2022, and is set to stay on through the end of the 2024 school year. Prior to that, the district had two superintendents in 2022, Tim Throne and Ken Weaver, as well as an interim superintendent prior to Markavitch.
Markavitch brought forward a template for a request for proposal that can be tailored to the Oxford School District, and believes getting it out sooner is better due to the intensity of the search.
Currently, there are nine school districts in Michigan searching for a superintendent.
“The most important sections in this are the description of the Oxford Community Schools that needs to be written fully and carefully so people have a good picture of what they’re coming into,” said Markavitch. “And on the last page the very important thing to review are the dates. That’s a very aggressive timeline, but if you want to get applications in by February, we need to stick to that.”
The plan is for the school board to select a search firm by the first meeting in November to try and bring forth candidates in February.
“Spring season gets pretty heavy for getting superintendents, so we thought you’d want to get it out early,” she said. “The sooner you get it out, the sooner you get it back.”