The South East Cornerstone Public School Division found the person they were looking for right within their own family.
The division announced April 25 they had selected Lynn Little as the person to take on the task of director of education this coming summer following the departure of current director Marc Casavant who is moving on to the Prairie Valley School Division near Regina.
"The transition I expect will go quite smoothly because Lynn, who is already involved in a lot of administration as superintendent of education, has been working with Marc for a few years already. She is familiar with our three-year plan and knows our priorities and is familiar with our strategy to implement the provincial sector plan," said Harold Laich, chairman of the Cornerstone board of trustees.
Little, who was destined to be the division's first-ever deputy director beginning Aug. 1 will now jump right into the top job, leaving the board with the task of filling the newly created deputy director's job, which they will be offering on a one-year trial basis.
Laich said some candidates for that role have already surfaced and unlike the search for the director, which they hired a consulting firm to lead, this time they'll be doing the ground work themselves.
Laich said the consultants garnered about 10 qualified applicants for the Cornerstone director's role, but that list was quickly narrowed down to just two finalists and Little, he said, came out the strongest in the interview processes.
The division will begin the work of backfilling other administration jobs since two of the three school superintendents are retiring this summer.
"We're needing to hire two school superintendents and one superintendent of education, which was Lynn's job. We have a superintendent of human resources in place. The window for applicants isn't that big right now. The deadline is May 11 and we'll be conducting interviews May 20," Laich said, adding that he expected some candidates from within the division will surface for sure and that will guarantee some quality will be available to them.
"This will mean a definite change in the leadership team, but there's lots of talent around, and we're excited about finding them and working with them," Laich said.
Little assumes the task of overseeing a division that sprawls throughout southeast Saskatchewan, embracing 8,200 students in 39 school facilities including a cyber school.
She has been with the Cornerstone division since 1993 first as teacher then principal and as the superintendent of student services and curriculum before being named superintendent of education.
Little achieved her bachelor of education degree from the University of Regina and a master of education degree at the University of Idaho. In 2009, she was awarded the honour of being named one of Canada's outstanding principals while she was overseeing students at Pleasantdale School. She began her teaching career in Craik in 1986. She later moved on to Hawarden School and then a second principalship at Carievale School for four years before moving on to Estevan Junior High School as principal in 1997. She took on her first superintendency in 2001.
