Raymondville rescinds appointment of superintendent finalist

RAYMONDVILLE — The search is back on for a superintendent.

The school board has rescinded its appointment of finalist Raul Nuques after the parties failed to reach a contract agreement, board President Jessica Ramirez-Cantu said yesterday.

The board had planned to hire Nuques last Tuesday.

“The reason for the board’s decision is due to not agreeing on contractual terms that the board felt would benefit the students, staff and taxpayers of Raymondville ISD,” Ramirez-Cantu said in a statement.

“Unable to reach this common ground, we as the board of trustees felt in the best interest of RISD to end negotiations and re-evaluate the process of selecting the next superintendent of schools,” she said.

The district paid the Texas Association of School Boards about $8,000 to conduct a search which led the board to name Nuques its finalist for the job last month.

TASB will not charge the district to conduct its second search, said Butch Felkner, the agency’s director of executive search services.

Felkner said the search will include a new round of job applications.

“The board has decided they are going to open up the search again,” Felkner said.

Felkner said the search will close on May 22.

Meanwhile, interim Superintendent Douglas Moore said he will continue to serve through the search process.

“I’m staying until they find somebody,” Moore said.

Nuques’ experience included superintendents’ jobs with the Zapata and Hearne school districts after working as director of special education for the Austin school district.

Earlier in his career, Nuques served as a middle school principal with the Uvalde school district and an administrator with the McAllen school district after working as a high school teacher with the Laredo United school district.

At the Zapata school district, Nuques resigned as superintendent in 2015 after about 16 months on the job, entering into a voluntary separation agreement that paid a year’s salary of $131,840.

At the Hearne school district, the school board, after an election shifted the balance of power, bought out his contract in 2016 after six months on the job, Nuques said in a written statement.

In his statement, Nuques said he became Hearne’s fifth superintendent in five years in the district that had been under a Texas Education Agency investigation focusing on school board governance concerns.

Board members are looking for a superintendent with “familiarity or experience in a district who has encountered a declining enrollment,” according to a list of qualifications for the job.

Since the mid 1990s, the district has struggled with falling enrollment.

The job’s requirements include experience in school financial management, state funding laws, competitive grant writing and “a proven track record of improving student achievement,” the list of qualifications states.

According to the list, the district is looking for “an effective communicator with superior interpersonal skills who can make and defend difficult decisions that are best for students and the district.”

The district has not set a salary range for the job, said Benjamin Clinton, the district’s special projects director.

Johnny Pineda, who retired effective Jan. 31, served the longest tenure of any district superintendent since at least 1990.

Hired in 1997, Pineda was making a salary of $146,100 when he retired.

Superintendent Search Timeline

• Community involvement sessions: January 24

• Leadership qualifications and characteristic meeting: February 2

• Application deadline: February 21

• Review of applications: February 27

• First round interviews: March 7, 8, and 9

• Follow-up interview preparation: March 20

• Second round interviews: March 20 and 21

• Vote to name finalist: March 27

• Vote to hire: April 18