New superintendent of Mishawaka schools to come from eastern Indiana

The Mishawaka school board will vote Wednesday on a contract for a new superintendent, and documents show the longtime chief of Bluffton-Harrison schools in eastern Indiana is the pick to fill the post.

School City of Mishawaka’s current superintendent, Dean Speicher, is set to retire when his three-year contract expires at the end of June.

In a news release, the district said the board will vote Wednesday on a contract for a new superintendent, concluding a year-long search. The district didn’t identify the candidate, saying the hire would be announced Wednesday before the board meeting.

The Tribune reviewed the proposed three-year contract and although the candidate’s name is redacted, the document includes identifying information that The Tribune traced to Wayne Barker, the superintendent at Bluffton-Harrison.

In a news release earlier this month, Barker announced that he intended to resign as superintendent of Bluffton-Harrison, pending his approval as superintendent for another school district, which wasn’t identified in the release. Barker’s resignation is effective June 30.

Barker has worked at the Bluffton-Harrison Metropolitan School District for 24 years and been superintendent for the past decade. The city of Bluffton is about 25 miles south of Fort Wayne.

Bluffton-Harrison has a districtwide enrollment of about 1,600 students. About 5,400 students are enrolled in Mishawaka schools.

The contract in Mishawaka calls for an annual salary of $170,000. The salary could be adjusted by the board in future years, based on performance ratings.

Dick Currey, president of the Mishawaka board, would neither confirm nor deny that Barker is the choice.

“We’re supposed to be making the big reveal on Wednesday,” he told The Tribune.

Though he declined to confirm the candidate is Barker, Currey said the person tapped for the post drew unanimous support from the board.

“We had several very qualified people,” he said, “and we picked the person who stood out among the distinguished pack.”

Asked why the district plans to wait until the day of the contract decision to make the announcement, Currey said doing so is “pretty standard” for school districts.

“I don’t see any downsides ... We felt the date of the public hearing would work well,” he said, adding that the public will have a chance to comment before the contract vote.

The board held an initial public hearing April 10 on the proposed contract, Currey said, a move that was required by state law.

Currey said that Bruce Stahly, the district’s former assistant superintendent for business services who retired at the end of 2017, served as a consultant and helped recruit superintendent candidates. Instead of conducting a broad search by advertising for the post, the district invited a select number of superintendents to be interviewed.

Stahly “is highly networked and knew the field of superintendents out there,” Currey said. “We worked with him to identify candidates who fit our profile and had established records of success in their districts, and we invited them” to be interviewed.

Barker became the Bluffton-Harrison superintendent in 2009, after serving 14 years as assistant principal and head basketball coach at Bluffton High School, according to the district’s website.

Barker graduated in 1989 with a bachelor’s degree in business education from Ball State University, and in 1998 earned a master’s degree in administrative leadership from Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.