FILLMORE : New Superintendent Meets With Teachers

Fillmore Unified School District officials presented their new superintendent to the district’s 150 teachers Monday.

David Haney, 48, superintendent of the 14,000-student Hesperia Unified School District in San Bernardino County for nearly 12 years, said the size of the 3,300-student Fillmore district was appealing, even though he will take a $9,000 cut in salary.

“I can’t wait to go out to each school and get to know each of you personally,” Haney told the teachers Monday. “That’s my first priority.”

Haney said he wanted to work in a smaller district. In the 12 years he worked in Hesperia, the district swelled from 1,700 students to 14,000, and a new school had to be built every year.

Haney was selected from among 42 applicants for the $75,000-a-year position left vacant when Marlene Davis resigned a month ago.

The school board chose Haney over six finalists after two days of interviews last week.

“We purposely avoided discussing our impressions until all the interviews were over because we didn’t want to influence each other until everyone had a fair hearing,” board member Joanne King said.

But when board members finally shared their rankings of the six candidates, Haney topped every list, King said. “It was unanimous.”

Before announcing their choice, board members visited Hesperia on Friday, where teachers, office staff and city officials characterized Haney as a visionary and a man of integrity, the board said.

They said they were impressed by Haney’s record of communicating with his staff and cooperating with city officials in Hesperia.

Haney’s contract begins Oct. 1, district officials said, but he will spend several days each week in Fillmore in the coming months.

King said she was pleased that the new superintendent was not coming to Fillmore with an agenda. “He seems really interested in waiting to hear about issues from the people working here,” she said.

Haney said he has begun house-hunting in Fillmore and that his daughters--Susan, 17, and Stephanie, 15--are looking forward to life in a town small enough that it would be possible “to know everybody.”

Haney’s wife, Pat, works in the Rialto Unified School District and serves as concert mistress for the High Desert Symphony. An exchange student from Mexico, Twinky Tamayo, will accompany the family in its move to Fillmore, probably in January, 1992, after Susan’s high school graduation.