Bondurant-Farrar assistant principal hired on as Berg Middle School principal

Four months after the principal at Berg Middle School went on an extended leave and then eventually resigned, the Newton Community School District on Feb. 12 hired his replacement, Daryl Dotson, an assistant principal at Bondurant-Farrar High School who will officially start the job in July.

School board members gave Dotson a round of applause for accepting the job. Dotson said he also goes by the nickname “Dotty.” He is the father of three children ages 30, 20 and 19, and he is the grandfather of one grandson. Dotson was raised by his mother and grew up in Waterloo, which he spoke of highly.

“This community kind of reminds me of Waterloo a little bit,” he said. “Growing up with the support we had as the East Waterloo Trojans and wearing the colors, that reminds me of here, a little bit of back home … I’m happy to be here. I’m happy I went through the process. Excited to get to work. Excited to be here.”

Newton Superintendent Tom Messinger provided school board members an overview of the hiring process, which was largely assisted by Grundmeyer Leader Services. In total, 29 candidates submitted applications for the position. The district reviewed the candidates and selected six people as semi-finalists.

“We did screening interviews for those. After the screening interviews we narrowed it down to three, and that’s when we had committees come together for a three-component final day of interviews for our candidates,” he said, later noting they also spent time with administrators and toured the middle school.

According to a draft of the interview questions, candidates were asked about their leadership styles, their roles in professional development, how they cultivate strong relationships as a leader within a system of accountability and how they resolve differences between district vision and building priorities as they arise.

Having 29 applicants was a significant pool for a principal position, Messinger said. He credited Grundmeyer Leader Services for playing a major part in that. Further data in the presentation showed 19 of the 29 applicants, or 65 percent, learned of the opening through Grundmeyer Leader Services website.

“In my opinion, we were pretty well taken care of by Grundmeyer for this,” Messinger said, noting the two people that served the Newton school district directly during the process were retired superintendent Art Sathoff and former Lynnville-Sully Superintendent Shane Ehresman.