HUNTINGTON BEACH : New Superintendent Called ‘Perfect Fit’

Calling him “a perfect fit” for their schools, Ocean View School District trustees on Tuesday signed James R. Tarwater to a four-year contract as the district’s new superintendent at a starting salary of $91,200 a year.

The district will also provide Tarwater with $3,000 in moving costs, a $500-a-month car allowance and will pay his membership fees of about $700 a year to the Assn. for California School Administrators.

The trustees tendered a four-year contract, the longest allowed by the state education code, to show their confidence in his leadership abilities, they said. Trustees had settled on Tarwater on April 14 but didn’t complete contract terms until last week.

Tarwater, 46, an assistant superintendent in the South Bay Union Elementary School District, headquartered in Imperial Beach in southern San Diego County, will start his new job May 18. His contract runs through June 30, 1996.

He will succeed Supt. Monte McMurray, who announced his retirement last October. McMurray, 56, was named interim superintendent when Dale Coogan, his predecessor, became ill in January, 1989. McMurray, who is wrapping up a 21-year tenure in the district that began as a teacher, officially took over as superintendent when Coogan died two months later.

Board President Carol Kanode called Tarwater “a perfect fit” for Ocean View’s needs because he has middle school experience, has been in charge of his district’s instructional program and is regarded as an expert in change, having written his doctoral thesis on changes in education, she said.

Tarwater will preside over major changes that already have been set in motion.

Ocean View next fall will implement a controversial “reconfiguration plan” under which four schools will be converted to middle schools of sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders.

Two schools, Haven View and Crest View, will close, and new principals will be assigned to most of the district’s 15 schools.