by Mallory Carlson ‘19

 On May 21, the Board of Education approved Eric Minus to become the next Sherwood principal. He will officially begin at Sherwood on July 1.

 Minus grew up in Montgomery County and attended MCPS schools, graduating from Blair, and heard great things about the Sherwood students, staff, and community. “I look forward to joining the Sherwood family and leading the school community,” he said.

 Minus began his educational career as a middle school science teacher in Newport News, Virginia. He later left education for three years to work in corporate America as a licensed healthcare administrator. He returned to education as a teacher and eventually shifted into administrative positions. He has been an assistant principal at White Oak Middle School and principal at both Francis Scott Key Middle School and John F. Kennedy High School. Following these positions, he was the Administrative Director for Howard County middle schools, and most recently a Director of School Support and Improvement of MCPS middle schools.

 Many months of work and discussion among various groups went into selecting Minus as principal. The Office of Human Resources and Development is responsible for carefully examining the application documents to ensure that all candidates who will be interviewed are eligible for the position, based on the requirements listed in the job advertisement. The office then checks the references given by the applicants and a senior level committee decides which applicants will be given the chance to be interviewed. As for the number of candidates that are interviewed, there is no fixed quota, but generally it is between three and six. This year for Sherwood, six contenders were interviewed.

 Kali Dang, the SGA President, was one of a few students who observed the interviews. “It was awesome to see all these candidates that were so excited to have even the chance to be our next principal,” she said. “It was inspiring to see how passionate so many of them are about bettering the schools and the students they lead and how they want to do that at Sherwood as well.”

 MCPS released a survey for the Sherwood community in April that asked participants to select four (out of 11) leadership skills they want to see in the new principal. The results showed that the principal will, hopefully, demonstrate an approachable personality, create a community-centered environment to maintain a positive and safe school climate, have high expectations for staff and students and create rigorous educational opportunities, and have an extensive knowledge of the curriculum and instruction.

 “My vision is to ensure that Sherwood High School is a place where inclusivity is valued and each and every student feels like they belong and are successful,” Minus explained. “In order for all students to be successful, we all need to come together as a school community.”

 Sherwood was not the only school searching for a new head of administration for the 2018- 2019 school year. New principals have been named at Gaithersburg, Quince Orchard, Walt Whitman, and Winston Churchill.