Montclair High School: Athletic Director search moves ahead

by Andrew Garda

garda@montclairlocal.news

With interim Montclair High School Athletic Director Mike Miello in place officially since the end of June, the Montclair Board of Education has already placed a request for applicants to fill the permanent position. In a posting placed on the Frontline Education website at Applitrack.com on July 18, the district states it is looking to fill the position as soon as possible. The closing date for applications is tomorrow, Friday, July 28.

Notable among the listing are several added elements, including the requirement that the athletic director will be handling the district-wide physical education and health curriculum for grades 6-to-12.

Applicants must also deliver “physical education and health instruction through a variety of means including formal observations and evaluations of physical education staff, informal monitoring of their performance and by serving as a resource person in related areas, districtwide.”

In addition to making recommendations to the supervisor, a new athletic director will be expected to ‘assist in the development, revision, and evaluation of 6-12 physical education and health curriculum,’ lead in-service workshops regarding instructional techniques and work with teachers and instructors to make sure the needs of both the physical education and health classes are being met.

This is all in addition to the day-to-day running of the after-school varsity, subvarsity and intramural sports programs at the high school level, which entails the scheduling of games, management of access to the various MHS athletic facilities, the supervision of athlete physicals, and the maintainence of paperwork and academic requirements for athletes in more than 30 sports.

Gannon had been the head of the high school’s athletic department since October 2013. In May, it was revealed that the Board of Education had decided not to bring Gannon back for the 2017-18 school year, causing a public outcry; more than 1,000 people signed an online petition for the district to reconsider the dismissal of Gannon and Kim Westervelt, the school’s assistant principal for English.

Miello, a veteran former high school and college football coach and administrator, has been working at the school since June 21.