Merrillville schools administrator Reid Amones is the new superintendent of the East Porter County School Corp.
The school board hired Amones on Monday night from a field that included 20 candidates, according to board president Richard McSparin.
No one spoke at the public hearing that preceded the vote.
Amones received a three-year contract with a base salary of $150,000. With a $4,500 annuity, auto allowance, health insurance and other benefits, the total amount is $201,338, officials said.
Amones succeeds Aaron Case, who is retiring. His first day is July 1.
Long-time board member Bob Martin, of Washington Township, said Amones will be East Porter’s fourth superintendent in 36 years.
Martin said the average time span for an Indiana superintendent is three years. “Ours is 11,” he said.
Amones comes to East Porter from the Merrillville Community School Corp., where he’s been executive director of personnel for the past eight years.
He said he planned to resign from that position at Tuesday’s Merrillville school board meeting.
Amones is the second administrator to leave Merrillville in recent weeks. Last month, Pierce Middle School Principal Candace Lillie resigned to become principal at the West Side Leadership Academy in Gary.
Amones, who lives in Valparaiso, formerly served as an assistant principal and principal at Valparaiso High School. He was also a principal at Clark Middle/High School in Hammond and spent 15 years as a building-level administrator at Willowcreek Middle School in Portage, where he began his career as a math teacher.
He’s held a doctorate in education for 12 years, and he said he was ready to take the next step since his children are grown. His wife, Brandi, and two of their three children, Phillip, 21, and Elizabeth, 24, attended Monday’s meeting.
Amones said his attraction to East Porter was its academic history of success.
“I’ve always known East Porter as a high-performing district with good students, good families and a professional staff that works hard… all of those things are part of what drew me initially,” he said.
The small district has about 2,100 students in Washington, Morgan and Pleasant townships.
Carole Carlson is a freelance reporter at the Post-Tribune.
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