Superintendent search nears end

Top candidates visiting Rossford schools ahead of March decision

2/26/2013

The two finalists for the Rossford Exempted Village Schools superintendent position will visit the district today and Wednesday, tour facilities, dine with board members, and meet staff and the public.

The candidates are Dan Creps, principal of Woodland Elementary School in Perrysburg, and Deb Piotrowski, superintendent at Xenia Community Schools, which is just east of Dayton.

Both will appear at a community meeting in the high school auditorium today — Mr. Creps from 6:15 to 7:15 p.m. and Ms. Piotrowski from 7:30 to 8:30.

The candidates separately will spend today and Wednesday taking in the sights and meeting staff. Mr. Creps will have his district tour today, and Ms. Piotrowski Wednesday. Neither returned phone calls to their offices.

The schedule is the same for both days. A session with administrators in the Bulldog Center Conference Room is slated for 11 a.m. to noon, followed by lunch with board members from noon to 1 p.m., and a district tour from 1 to 3 p.m.

From 3 to 3:45 p.m., Mr. Creps and Ms. Piotrowski are to have a meet-and-greet with staffers from the junior high and high school and other staff. This will be followed by more meetings with personnel from Eagle Point, Glenwood, and Indian Hills elementaries, and dinner with board members from 4:45 to 6 p.m.

Mr. Creps assumed his principalship in Perrysburg in 2007, coming from the Sylvania district, where he was principal at Sylvan Elementary. In Sylvania, he also did stints as assistant principal at Arbor Hills Junior High and as a sixth-grade English and reading teacher at Timberstone Junior High and Whiteford Elementary.

Mr. Creps grew up in Rossford and graduated from high school there. After earning a bachelor’s degree in speech and English at Wittenberg University, Springfield, Ohio, he worked for a radio station in Erie, Pa., writing copy and selling advertising. He earned his teaching accreditation at the University of Toledo while supporting himself with a job at The Andersons. His first teaching job was at Whiteford Elementary in Ottawa Lake, Mich.

Ms. Piotrowski grew up in Toledo and has been superintendent in Xenia since 2010. She held the same post with Millcreek-West Unity Local Schools and was a principal and teacher in Toledo’s Washington Local Schools and taught in the Toledo Public Schools. She holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in education from the University of Toledo.

The Rossford school board plans to make a hiring decision by early March.

— Carl Ryan