hiring a principal

Well Tisha B'Av is over and I'm eating a late lunch with another religious person at 12:45 so we can eat meat. Tomorrow is shwarma day, so we're not going to go there, probably just to the local cafeteria and get a chicken leg or something.

Our girls school principal decided to retire. He had a heart attack during the year last year (A couple days after I had a disagreement with him, though I don't blame myself for the heart attack). But he gave notice very late, so they don't have time to go through the normal hiring procedure, so they are doing a shortened, less open, procedure.

I am on the board of parents of the school and I tried to find out how we could be involved in the hiring process, so we don't end up with a monster. I was told that the best we could do is give a recommendation for a specific candidate. There are 3 candidates from our community who are vying for the position.

If anyone is qualified to be a religious girls elementary school principal and wants to move up north, now is the time.

The current candidates are:
* the former assistant principal who left the school last year to become principal somewhere else.
* The assistant principal at the boys school
* The teacher who was already appointed to be assistant principal this coming year.

They all seem to be qualified for the position, though we aren't doing any interviewing of the candidates, so I don't really know that. One of the members on the board wanted us to send a letter recommending the former assistant principal for the job. Apparantly, a number of people have called up the supervisor and said some nasty things about her.

The board member who wanted to send a letter is also the best friend of the former assistant principal. She was not interested in sending similar letters in support of the other candidates who are community members.

My first thought was that it would be ok to say that we do not agree with nasty rumors and that in our opinion she was a viable candidate, but no more support then that.

After thinking about it for a while, I changed my mind and said that if people are complaining about her, I am not giving any recommendation unless I know what people are saying and to check if there is a problem. As a representative of the parent body, I can't just ignore the fact that people are unhappy with her candidacy.

Most of the board agreed with my assessment and we decided that if the supervisor is not going to include us in the hiring process then we will not, as a body, do any recommending.

God help us.