BRIEF: Selah school board OKs contract for new superintendent [Yakima Herald-Republic, Wash.]

May 26--SELAH, Wash. -- Members of the Selah school board have voted unanimously on a contract officially hiring Shane Backlund as the district's new superintendent.

The vote, which came Thursday evening, followed a May 17 unanimous vote to hire Backlund, who had been with the district for more than a decade, most recently as its director of teaching and learning.

He'll earn salary and benefits worth between $141,000 to $144,000, depending on health insurance options.

His selection and hiring was on a relatively fast track that began May 10, when Superintendent Steve Chestnut announced his resignation to accept a job as superintendent of the Maricopa Unified School District in Arizona.

Chestnut's departure was not a surprise. A well respected administrator since his hiring in 2009, Chestnut had been open about looking for a new job and had been a finalist for several superintendent positions in the past year

School board members said they'd been considering Backlund for a couple years as a potential successor to Chestnut.

___

(c)2012 Yakima Herald-Republic (Yakima, Wash.)

Visit Yakima Herald-Republic (Yakima, Wash.) at www.yakima-herald.com

Distributed by MCT Information Services