Somerset Hills Superintendent Search Officially Begins

Most students in the Somerset Hills School District can't remember a time when Peter Miller wasn't schools superintendent. And some parents even may remember him as a teacher at Bernards High School.

But Miller's announcement earlier this year that he will be retiring at the end of the 2012-13 year means that the district must start searching for a new top administrator — and some of the wheels for that seach were put in motion on Wednesday night.

The regional school board voted at Wednesday's meeting to hire the New Jersey School Boards Association to guide the search for a new schools superintendent to replace Miller. The association will be paid a $12,000 fee.

As part of the search, the school board already has set two meetings to ask for public input on what characteristics residents would like to see in the next superintendent.

Meeting dates announced at 11:30 a.m. on Nov. 13, with the location to be set in one of the three schools, and at 7 p.m. on Nov. 15 at Bernards High School, 25 Olcott Ave.

Meetings set for public input on what new superintendent should be like

Board members will meet before then with Gwen Thornton, field service representative, to talk about how the superintendent search will be conducted, said Donna Coons, president of the Board of Education.

In an era when it's frequent for school superintendents to hop from school system to school system, Miller has spent the past 35 years in the Somerset Hills district, where he said he began as a teacher of various technology classes at Bernards High.

He said he later became district curriculum supervisor, vice-principal and assistant superintendent before he was appointed superintendent 10 years ago.

Board Member Deborah Hawkins jokingly said Miller had been asked to remain as "volunteer superintendent."