PANAMA — With less than two weeks until current Panama superintendent Aaron Wolfe leaves the school district for a new position at Wellsville Central School, the Panama Board of Education is still working on finding an interim superintendent to take over until a permanent one can be found.

A special meeting of the Board of Education was held back on March 10, where David O’Rourke, district superintendent and chief executive officer for Erie 2-Chautauqua-Cattaraugus BOCES, was officially hired by the school to serve as search consultant to help find someone to fill the interim superintendent role and the permanent superintendent role following that.

O’Rourke said that in looking to fill specifically the interim superintendent role, the school looks to find someone who can fill the role for a short time.

“Typically, this need occurs during a short-term period to provide a school system with chief executive leadership during a transition,” O’Rourke said. “Most often, qualified, experienced retired superintendents can fill this role effectively.”

While O’Rourke said typically it is more common in this region for retiring superintendents to give schools six months or more notice to their boards to help provide a window where a search for a new superintendent can take place, this is not always possible if the superintendent is leaving to take a new job, so then an interim becomes necessary. He added that interim superintendents are often sought out for their experience with the “significant responsibilities inherent in this role.”

Being both the interim and permanent superintendent search consultant is something that O’Rourke said the district superintendent for BOCES provides to their local school boards at no cost to the schools. The work to find an interim has been ongoing, and it is expected someone will fill the role by the time Wolfe leaves at the end of the month.

“I expect they will have conducted interviews by next week, and appoint an interim to begin work on April 1,” O’Rourke said.

According to the minutes of the regular board meeting held on March 17, the school board met again with O’Rourke for a special meeting on March 20 to further discuss the hiring of an interim superintendent. The board also sent out a letter to the community, saying they will provide updates on the search as they come.

“The Panama Board has a letter to the community to provide updates regarding the search for an interim superintendent,” O’Rourke said. “The Board will issue other communications at a future date about their plans for next steps.”

The letter asks that any interested candidates in the interim superintendent role or anyone with questions about the search process contact O’Rourke at dorourke@e2ccb.org or 716-549-4454, ext. 4029.