CMS superintendent will resign in June

Clovis Municipal Schools Superintendent Rhonda Seidenwurm resigned Wednesday effective June 30.

Board of Education President Lora Harlan said this traditionally is the time of year when the superintendent’s contract is up for renewal.

Seidenwurm signed a two-year, $138,700-a-year contract in June 2008.

Harlan said Seidenwurm had indicated to the board as early as last summer that she thought this would be her last year in Clovis.

“She wanted to let the board know to give us appropriate amount of time to find a new superintendent,” Harlan said.

Harlan said the board will sit down next week and decide the process and timeline for hiring a new superintendent.

“We appreciate what she has done for the district over the past five years,” Harlan said. “She has taken the district in a lot of good directions.”

Harlan said Seidenwurm’s resignation is in no way connected to the controversy over the firing and subsequent court-ordered reinstatement of varsity basketball coach J.D. Isler situation.

Isler was suspended from coaching in mid-December by the New Mexico Activities Association and told he would be fired as coach in January by the district.

Seidenwurm also said her resignation was not connected to the Isler situation.

“We’re getting ready to start a really exciting phase for Clovis of redoing every building we have,” she said. “It’s going to be exciting for someone but that’s not what I want to do.”

Seidenwurm said she told the board when she was hired in April 2005 that she would stay as long as she was the best person for the job.

“When I saw the handwriting on the wall, what the job would be with the construction, I knew I couldn’t give 100 percent,” she said. “And Clovis deserves 100 percent. Construction is not my area of expertise. I understand teaching and learning.”

Seidenwurm said she and her husband, Jerry, decided last summer it was time for them to move back to Albuquerque.

Seidenwurm has posted a letter to the community and district staff via the district’s Web site at www.clovis-schools.org.