And then there were five.

After receiving around 40 inquiries for the superintendent vacancy, the search for Yankton School District’s (YSD) next superintendent is down to its last remaining finalists.

Those five candidates will all come to Yankton April 11 for interviews with board members, faculty and staff and members of the community. Upon completion of the interviews, the school board will select the new  superintendent.

Finalists are:

• Brad Berens, who is currently the principal of Mitchell Middle School;

• Cynthia Clark, who serves as the director of curriculum and assessment at the San Mateo (Calif.) Union High School           District;

• Steve Grond, who currently is the superintendent for the Boyden-Hull (Iowa) School District;

• Wayne Kindle, who is the Yankton High School Principal;

• and Bob Sittig, who is the superintendent and elementary school principal at the Baltic (S.D.) School District.

“All of the finalists are quality candidates and we were impressed with their education and training,” said Chris Specht, YSD board president. “They’re all worthy of interviews.”

Board member Jay Williams said officials had a good slate of qualified candidates from which to choose.

“The board selected these five from the list of candidates after reviewing each of their resumes and discussing their qualifications,” he said. “All of the candidates submitted answers to a series of questions about how they would approach managing YSD, and I felt as if these candidates had the best answers.”

As part of the search for the next superintendent, the school board hired the firm Dakota Educational Consulting (DEC), led by Rick Melmer and Tom Oster.

“The firm really did their homework,” Specht said. “They did what the board hoped, and expected, they would do and they helped us identify some of the candidates for the school board.”

Williams said he thinks the consultants were extremely helpful during the process.

“They were able to put together a group of candidates that they had vetted to ensure they all met the qualifications for the position,” he said. “They contacted references and prepared a thorough document describing each of the candidates. They went over each of the candidates and answered any questions the board presented.”

Berens has served as the Mitchell Middle School principal for the last 11 years, after previously serving as a teacher in Mitchell and elsewhere across South Dakota.

“Having grown up in South Dakota, I know that Yankton has a solid school district and a very supportive communication system with the community,” he told the Press & Dakotan. “I feel as if the experience I’ve gained in the Mitchell district prepares me for this job. There are also a number of similarities between the two districts.”

Berens said the number one thing that most schools deal with is financial challenges, and Mitchell has gone through some of those challenging times.

“I know Yankton has, and still is, in the process of dealing with some of those financial issues,” he said. “Financial problems are something that a lot of districts have been, and are still, currently working through.”

Berens added that if he is hired as the next YSD superintendent, he will remain passionate about sharing what schools are doing for the community with the people they serve.

“I want the community to feel as if the school is a safe place for their kids,” he said. “There also needs to be a collaboration between the school district and the community, and that is something that I value highly.”

Berens stated that there are a indicators that Yankton is a community that highly values its school district. He said he’s always liked the challenge of administrators, and is excited about the opportunity to potentially work for YSD and the community.

Sittig served as a teacher in Baltic for more than a decade before switching gears to move into the administrative level.

“I’ve held a variety of positions over the years, including coach, activities director, teacher, principal and now superintendent,” he said. “I think the experience and knowledge I’ve gained through wearing all of these different hats gives me a good knowledge base for working with a K-12 school district.”

One of the biggest differences between the Baltic School District and YSD is the size — Baltic has about 415 kids enrolled in the district.

“Despite the size difference, you deal with a lot of the same budget issues — Yankton’s numbers are just bigger,” Sittig said. “I’ve had good people to work with at Baltic, and I’m aware of a lot of good people that are in the Yankton district as well.”

Grond has spent the last eight years as superintendent of the Boyden-Hull School District in Iowa. Prior to that, he had worked as a teacher and coach at both Watertown and Brandon Valley.

“I have a background in South Dakota, and, as a coach, I had interaction with kids, teachers and coaches from Yankton and I always came away impressed by them,” he said. “Yankton has a solid reputation for high achievement and a standard of excellence in academics, arts and athletics.”

Grond said one of the biggest differences between the Boyden-Hull district and YSD is the size. Boyden-Hull has about 630 students enrolled, and the town of Hull has a population of about 2,200.

“There are similarities in the fact that we want what’s best for our kids,” he said. “We want the best education money can afford, we want our kids to achieve at high levels and we want their to be accountability with the district.”

He said his background in larger districts has helped him understand the nuances of what it takes to work in a bigger district. He also added that, unless your school district is growing dramatically, many schools are facing budget issues.

“With budget issues, you have be able to make tough choices,” Grond said. “There is a concern with the budget from the YSD school board and the community and I do have a background in dealing with budget issues.”

Cynthia Clark received her Bachelor’s degree from South Dakota State University, and since that time, has worked for a number of years in California.

She served as a principal for C.K McClatchy High School, located in Sacramento for four years. After that, she became the Director of School Improvement for the Sacramento City Unified School District. Clark currently works as the San Mateo Union High School District’s director of curriculum and assessment, a position she has held for more than a year.

She was not available for comment by press time.

Wayne Kindle, the Yankton High School (YHS) principal, declined to comment about the position until a final decision is made by the board next week.

“We will get to take a really close look at all the candidates next week, and they’ll also get a chance to take a look at us,” Specht said.

Williams said he’ll be looking for a candidate that has great leadership skills and one that can pull the community together behind YSD. He said he’s confident the interview process will allow the board to identify this person.

You can follow Andrew Atwal on Twitter at twitter.com/andrewatwal