Farmington Municipal Schools names finalists for superintendent

FARMINGTON — Two Farmington Municipal Schools administrators are among four finalists the Board of Education will choose from to fill the superintendent’s position.

The board will, on April 8, facilitate a set of interviews at San Juan College during a day-long, invitation-only event, with panels selected from members of the community, administrators and staff advisory teams.

A closed-session Board of Education meeting will happen with the search team present on April 9. Selection of a new superintendent is expected to take place during that closed session.

More: Hundreds respond to Navajo human rights commission's call for former Tate's Auto customers

“I want to congratulate all the superintendent finalists and wish them well in their upcoming interviews,” Board of Education President Stephanie Thompson said in a news release. “I also want to thank our advisory teams and search consultants for their work in helping the Board of Education conduct a clear and open process. In choosing these finalists, it is the Board’s goal to select a leader for Farmington Municipal Schools that will continue to build on the incredible successes we’ve experienced in the last eight years and continue to rise to excellence in every pursuit.”

The finalists are:

• Farmington Municipal Schools Executive Director of Support Services Cody L. Diehl has worked for the district since 2015. He is a former principal at two local high schools, Bloomfield High School and Kirtland Central High School and previously worked as an administrative interventionist at River Valley High School in Mohave Valley, Arizona.

• Farmington Municipal Schools Director of School Improvement, Data, and Assessment Nathan Pierantoni has worked in the district since 2019 and previously was assistant director of school improvement and data analysis. He also served as the principal of Heights Middle School and was assistant principal of Farmington High School.

• Stacy Y. Diller has been the principal at Des Moines Municipal School District in Des Moines, New Mexico since 2020. She’s the former superintendent of the Clayton Municipal School District, was a regional reading coach in Raton and served as a junior high school principal and athletic director in Clayton.

• Greg Rockhold is currently director of programs and is the interim principal at Regional Education Cooperative VII - REC7 in Hobbs. He previously was assistant principal and athletic director of Heizer Middle School in Hobbs and was principal of Tsé Bit A’í Middle School in Shiprock as well as once serving as principal of Davis-Ramoth Memorial School in Selawik, Alaska.

The Board of Education selected the finalists at a special meeting on March 25.

Superintendent Gene Schmidt announced in a Jan. 6 video posted to the district’s Facebook page that he will retire at the end of the current 2021-2022 school year on June 30, according to the Daily Times archives.

More: Baseball and softball action in full swing this week

Schmidt was hired as superintendent during an April 9, 2015, Farmington Municipal Schools Board of Education meeting and started working the next month.

Schmidt and his wife Wendy Schmidt plan on retiring to Washington state, to spend more time with his grandchildren and aging mother.

Contact John R. Moses at 505-564-4624, or via email at jmoses@daily-times.com.

Support local journalism with a digital subscription: http://bit.ly/2I6TU0e

This article originally appeared on Farmington Daily Times: Farmington Municipal Schools to choose new superintendent April 9