ANDOVER — The search for the next principal at High Plain Elementary School is down to three candidates and will likely conclude before the last day of school on June 26.
Superintendent Claudia Bach expects to name a replacement for retiring High Plain Principal Brenda O'Brien before the end of the school year.
The three finalists for the job are: Pamela Lathrop, principal of Franklin Elementary School in North Andover; Barbara McKinley, early childhood director and out-of-district coordinator for the Pentucket Regional School District in West Newbury; and Tara Rossi, assistant principal at North Hampton School in North Hampton, N.H.
The three women were chosen by a committee made up of High Plain staff members and parents.
Bach has interviewed each of them and will visit their schools this week.
O'Brien's successor will take over July 1.
O'Brien is retiring after three decades working in the Andover school system.
She was hired in 1979 as a health education program coordinator and also has served as assistant principal at Bancroft Elementary School and as principal of Shawsheen Primary School.
O'Brien is High Plain's first and only principal. The school opened in 2002.
Also retiring this summer is Andover High School Principal Peter Anderson.
Anderson will be replaced by Jonathan Harris, a Chelmsford native presently working in the Austin, Texas, school system.
Seven of the town's 10 school principals will have been replaced in the last two years after O'Brien and Anderson retire.
