Chino Valley Unified searches for new cheif, with candidates

As the Chino Unified School District deals with a myriad of serious financial challenges, it must also find a new leader to provide direction.

With the loss of its superintendent Edmond Heatley at the end of the month, the district board on Monday, voted 3-1 to allow internal opportunity for interested district employees to submit applications for the top job.

Applicants have until the end of the workday Friday to submit applications. The board will interview candidates and consider an interim superintendent to take over when Heatley steps down on June 30. 

Two candidates are apparently the first to emerge. 

Officials are expecting Heatley's second in command, deputy superintendent Stephanie Phillips, to tip her hat and are looking forward to interviewing Phillips for the position. Longtime educator and district administrator Wayne Joseph has also indicated he is interested in the superintendent position, with several teachers and parents speaking highly of Joseph before the board at their Tuesday meeting to consider the process.

Phillips, who has been deputy superintendent for the past two years, joined the district as associate superintendent of business and operations in 2006 from the Ontario-Montclair School District. Prior to her joining Chino Valley Unified, Phillips has served as superintendent of business services and senior director of business and finance at a high school district in Sacramento. 

Since 2004, Phillips has been an adjunct professor for school business management certificate program at University of Southern California where she earned a doctorate in education. Phillips also worked as a finance and budget analyst for the California Department of Finance in Sacramento.

Joseph has been director of alternative education for Chino Valley Unified since last year. Prior to that, Joseph was the director of secondary principals for the district, evaluating the performance of high school principals for the district. Before that role, Joseph was principal opf Chino High School from 1999 to 2005 and Ramona Junior High School from 1996 to 1999.

oseph started his career as an English teacher for the Pomona Unified School District in 1974 and taught for four years before becoming an assistant principal at the age of 25.

Board members interviewed for this story said they would evaluate all candidates fairly.