Cayuse Prairie School Offers Superintendent Position to Local Educator
Should Christy Bortz accept the role, she’ll replace longtime superintendent Amy Piazzola, who is retiring at the school year’s end. The board hopes to have her final answer next week.
By Mariah Thomas
Cayuse Prairie School’s board of trustees voted Thursday to offer its superintendency to Christy Bortz, who currently works as a local instructional coach at Hedges Elementary School in Kalispell.
The vote comes following a search conducted by the Montana School Boards Association, which yielded eight potential candidates for the job. Board members discussed offering her a two-year contract, at $93,500 annually, at their Thursday deliberations. Board chair Tyler Hash said trustees hope to have Bortz’s final answer next week, pending finalizing her contract and any negotiations.
Bortz, should she accept, would replace longtime superintendent Amy Piazzola, who announced her retirement in January.
The small, rural district Piazzola has helmed for the past 12 years sits in the east valley. It’s one of five elementary districts in the county that grew during the last school year, and has experienced a steady increase in enrollment over the better part of the past decade.
Board members Thursday said they appreciated a one-year plan for the district Bortz had outlined. Hash said that plan contained a phased approach for Bortz to assume the role, integrate with staff and understand the job of a superintendent — a position which she has not previously held, though she has several years of experience as a classroom teacher and as an instructional coach. Instructional coaches serve in a leadership capacity in schools, helping teachers to improve instruction and student outcomes.
“We’re not looking for someone who is coming in to fix Cayuse Prairie,” Hash said. “We’re looking for someone who can come in and adapt and work with us.”
He said Bortz’s approach aligns with that vision.
Cayuse Prairie School isn’t the valley’s sole district priming for new leadership in the coming academic year. Last week, the Whitefish School District also made an offer to one of its superintendent finalists: Michigan educator Jennifer Fee. That district is also waiting on Fee’s official acceptance of the role.