WEST TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV)– The Vigo County School Board took one of the final steps in finalizing their new superintendent on Monday, as the board held a public hearing for feedback on the proposed contract. 

Only one person spoke during the meeting, which was surprising to board president Amy Lore. She said now they will wait a week until their next meeting, and any members of the public can contact them by email if they still have concerns they want addressed.

“We are in a mandatory seven-day waiting period. On the 12th of June, we will reconvene for another special meeting, and it will be a typical business meeting, no special rules or anything, and we will take our final vote, and that’ll be that,” Lore said. 

The hearing on Monday solely dealt with details of the contract, which was made public several weeks ago. The board has also since announced that Chris Himsel is the candidate they are seeking. 

Board member Ken Warner said according to data he found from the Indiana School Board Association, Vigo County was the 10th or 11th-largest corporation in the state, and the proposed salary of $195,000 would be around 16th-largest. 

Lore said those statistics are important to the board as they wanted the salary to match that of superintendents at similarly-sized corporations across Indiana. 

“There are obvious questions about, you’re talking about the leader of the school corporation, the pricetag can give some people pause,” she said. “What we come back to is again, comparing ourselves to similar school corporations and what the job actually entails, it is massive.”

With the vote set to take place next week, Lore said she is excited to be close to the end of the process. 

“I think there’s a sense of elation that we’re so close,” she said. “I mean, months of work. Months of work. And attention to detail, making sure we vet everything and get down to the bottom of who’s going to be the best for our school district, so we’re just really, really excited to see the finish line.”