Iowa City superintendent interviewing for Council Bluffs post today

Iowa City Schools Superintendent Lane Plugge is a finalist for a job in Council Bluffs.

Plugge confirmed that he is interviewing today for the position of chief administrator at the new Green Hills Area Education Agency.

Plugge, Iowa City's superintendent since 1999, said his interest primarily is to be closer to family. His mother and siblings live in Omaha, Neb., where Plugge grew up. His children and grandchildren are in Lincoln, Neb.

“The big motivation for me is family,” Plugge said in a phone interview from Council Bluffs.

AEAs are regional agencies created by the state in the mid-1970s to provide services and support to local school systems. Green Hills will combine two existing AEAs, leaving nine in Iowa.

As its chief administrator, Plugge would oversee 360 employees who serve a 15-county area in southwest Iowa, according to the Web site for Ray and Associates Inc., which is conducting the search. The Green Hills AEA includes 51 school districts with about 44,000 students and 3,900 teachers and administrators.

The job would pay about $180,000 a year plus benefits and the person hired is to start July 1, according to the Web site. Plugge's current salary is $174,021 annually under a contract that runs through June 30, 2012.

A newsletter for the new Green Hills AEA says chief administrator candidates will be interviewed Dec. 14-16, and the selection will be made by the first of the year. Plugge said he believed four or five people were interviewing this week.

This is not the first time Plugge has shown interest in another job. In 2007, he was one of five candidates invited to a second interview for the superintendent's position at the Papillion-La Vista School District in suburban Omaha, Neb. Plugge was not offered the job.

Plugge came to the Iowa City school district after serving as superintendent of the Grand Island, Neb., district.