The Mid-Prairie School District has received 34 applications from candidates looking to become their next middle school principal.

Current Middle School Principal Marc Pennington submitted his resignation effective at the end of the school year. Superintendent Mark Schneider says their search committee has identified and prioritized the characteristics, attributes, skills, and abilities they’d like to see in the new principal, “And right now it is our intention of holding interviews on the 8th and 9th of March. I have as my goal to identify the people we are going to interview by the end of this week. It looks like we will interview probably seven or eight candidates over those two days, then hopefully by March 22nd, which is the second school board meeting of the month, I will have my recommendation to the school board about who our next middle school principal should be.”

Schneider says Pennington held the position for about seven years and prior to that, he taught special education at the high school for 10 years. He says Pennington is leaving Mid-Prairie for a career opportunity outside of education and will be missed.