READ PROFILE OF CCS INTERIM SUPER

Laurens Superintendent

To Fill Interim Position

At Cooperstown Central

Romona Wenck Begins Duties On Oct. 1

By JIM KEVLIN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com

COOPERSTOWN – Bill Crankshaw will be leaving Cooperstown’s school superintendent post Sept. 30.  On Oct. 1, he will be succeeded as interim super by Romona N. Wenck, who retired last summer from Laurens Central as the longest-serving superintendent in Otsego County.

“We’re very fortunate to have her,” said CCS board President Tim Hayes a few minutes ago.

Meeting last evening, the CCS school board amended Crankshaw’s contract to allow him to leave at the end of the month to assume his new duties at the Greater Johnston School District in Montgomery County, where he will administer a system where he once studied.

“Our hope is to have a new superintendent in place by Jan. 1,” Hayes said, “but we recognize that may be a very quick turnaround for most candidates.”

As happened when Crankshaw took the Cooperstown job in 2016, succeeding C.J. Hebert, who had died in an ATV accident, ONC BOCES Superintendent Nick Savin, himself retiring, has already sets things in motion.

“Right now,” said Hayes, “it’s an open call. Right now, everyone knows we have an open position.”  This time, Catherine Huber, who will soon start work as Savin’s successor, will advise the CCS board through the search’s conclusion.

Hayes declined to say what qualities he would like to see in the next superintendent. “That will happen as we narrow the pool of candidates,” he said.

“Each board member has a particular idea of what they would like to see, and we have an overall set of enduring goals,” he continued.  Those goals will be reviewed with candidates in the interview stage of the process.

While COVID-19 is a wild card, Hayes said, he expects the school board to have a choice of “a broad and deep pool of applicants.  Cooperstown is a very high-performing district with a tremendous community of support from parents, to institutions, to its alumni.  It’s quite unique in our region of Upstate New York.”

He said Crankshaw returning home is “a tremendous opportunity for that district.”  He sat in at the Johnstown school board meeting where Crankshaw was hired and got a sense of the challenges being faced there.

“In don’t think there’s anybody but Bill who could help,” he said, “given his background in that district and the experiences he has had across administrative duties in other districts, including ours.”