Old Rochester Regional Assistant Superintendent Mike Nelson was selected as the next ORR superintendent of schools in a vote taken by the combined school committees on Thursday night at Old Rochester Junior High School in Mattapoisett.
ORR’s 10-year Superintendent of Schools, Doug White, will retire from the position at the expiration of his contract on June 30.
The vote culminated a meeting lasting nearly two hours in which nine seats representing the region side and eight seats representing the union side were required to decide between the three finalists, Nelson, Westport Superintendent Dr. Gary Reese and Dartmouth Assistant Superintendent Michelle Roy.
After a spirited debate pitting Reese’s overall experience against what Nelson has shown in his six years at ORR, the committee decided the school district’s immediate future in one round of voting with Nelson garnering a 6-3 edge in votes on the region side and a 5-3 edge on the union side.
The decision was met with roars of approval from a full auditorium made up of many of Nelson’s faculty supporters.
After a short recess, Shannon Finning, chairperson of the union side, announced that pending negotiations Nelson had accepted the committee’s offer. Finning and Cary Humphrey, the chairman of the region side, will be joined with one other committee member to negotiate a contract with Nelson that will, if successful, be brought before the ORR School Committee at its next scheduled meeting on Monday, March 23, at 6:30 pm at the ORR Junior High School.
by Mick Colageo