For the third time since November, Waitaki Boys' High School will advertise its vacant rector position, this time, hopefully, with an extra financial inducement.
School commissioner Nicola Hornsey said the decision did not represent a setback for the hiring process. It was only a ‘‘work in progress''.
A consensus on the six-person hiring panel was reached at a nine-hour session of interviews and deliberations on Monday.
‘‘We certainly warmed to the applicants, but we must make the appointment that is right for the school and the school community,'' she said.
The first round of applications for the rector's position closed in December with only seven applications. The timing at the end of the year might have limited the response.
The school readvertised in January and received 12 applications, but now Ms Hornsey said greater financial incentive could be required to attract an experienced, ‘‘high performing principal''.
She would, ‘‘more vigorously'', pursue a principal recruitment allowance from the Ministry of Education, the inducement of $50,000 a year extra for an initial period of three years.
The school's roll and decile rating had affected the salary the school could offer a new rector and it had been challenging to find a person with ‘‘all of the requirements that we are seeking''.
The school was looking for ‘‘an experienced principal to come in and carry on from where [acting rector Clive Rennie] is moving the school.
‘‘And we realise that in order to attract that type of experience, because those type of people are likely to be in bigger schools, we need to be able to remunerate them appropriately, and the school's resources are not such that we can cough it up ourselves.
‘‘And, even if we did, we would still need ministry approval for that ...
‘‘If you're coming from a large school to a school of 470 to 480 [pupils], there will be a considerable drop in remuneration and we're trying to top that up.''
