BULLHEAD CITY – Members of the Colorado River Union High School District have unanimously selected three finalists to be the district’s next superintendent. One candidate is internal, one is external, and one previously served as a CRUHSD superintendent.
The three are CRUHSD’s career-technical education (CTE) and college and career readiness (CCR) director Gina Covert, Sacaton Elementary School District superintendent Dr. Cherryl Paul, and former CRUHSD superintendent Monte Silk. All three have strong Arizona ties.
Board members have tentatively scheduled an open forum for community members and educators the last week in May, after the school year concludes. Additional details will be available when the event is finalized.
At least two other candidates interviewed for the position. Arizona law allows applicants’ names to be withheld until finalists are named.
River Valley High School principal Dorn Wilcox has served as interim superintendent since January, following the departure of Todd Flora.
Here is background about all three finalists, in alphabetical order:
Gina Covert has held faculty and administrative positions in both CRUHSD and the Bullhead City (Elementary) School District. She and her family moved to the area in 1998. She has been a high school English teacher, CTE instructor, guidance counselor and junior high school principal. She currently oversees the CTE programs at CRUHSD’s three high schools and represents CRUHSD in the Western Arizona Vocational Education Joint Technical Education District (WAVE JTED), a partnering CTE district for Mohave and La Paz Counties. She is completing her doctoral dissertation.
Cherryl Paul has held many different roles throughout her career in the field of education. The Arizona School Administrators and Arizona School Board Association named her “All Arizona Superintendent” for small schools last year. She served as a National Baldrige Examiner as well as a member of several AdvancED External Review Teams, providing accreditation feedback to school systems throughout Arizona and school districts across the United States. She currently serves as president-elect for the board of directors of the Arizona State Impact Aid Association. She was previously director of organizational improvement & professional learning in the Deer Valley Unified School District. She was named Sacaton ESD superintendent in 2017; the district lies within the Gila River Indian Reservation. Dr. Paul has a doctorate in Organizational Leadership.
Monte Silk was CRUHSD Superintendent from 1999 until 2005 and was previously assistant superintendent at the Bullhead City School District. He retired last year as superintendent of the Sidney, Montana, Public Schools. He was with that district from 2017 until 2020. After leaving CRUHSD, Silk was the superintendent at Snowflake Unified School District in Arizona, Superintendent at Corvallis School District in Montana, where he served for five years, and interim superintendent of the Pine Creek School District in Montana. He has also owned an educational consulting business since 2013. Silk has held faculty and administrative positions in Iowa, Montana, Wyoming and Arizona, and has an educational specialist post-graduate degree.
