His interview will be on Thursday

Albert Lea School District Superintendent Mike Funk will be interviewed Thursday for the superintendent position at St. Cloud Area School District.

The St. Cloud school board met Tuesday evening and picked seven candidates to interview for the position. It plans to replace its current superintendent, Bruce Watkins, who is retiring when his contract ends at the end of June.

Funk said he was recruited by a search firm for the position. The job holds appeal to him because it’s where his wife, Anne, is from, and whose family still resides there.

“I am quite pleased with the direction of our school district, so this was a hard decision to even consider,” Funk said.

Funk will interview at 5:15 p.m. Thursday. The St. Cloud school board is conducting interviews today and Thursday for its first round. The board plans then to narrow the candidate field to two or three and have follow-up interviews next week, and the final candidate will be chosen by Feb. 27, according to the St. Cloud Times.

Other candidates for the St. Cloud job include Nettie Collins-Hart, a superintendent from Forest Park, Ill.; John Engelking, a superintendent of Proctor School District; Rick Mills, a CEO from Minneapolis Public Schools; Diane Moeller, interim director of curriculum, instruction and assessment at St. Cloud School District; Willie Jett, an assistant superintendent in the St. Paul School District; and Lolli Haws, instructional superintendent in the District of Columbia, according to the St. Cloud Times.

The St. Cloud Area School District is the largest in central Minnesota, with almost 9,500 students. It has eight elementary schools, two junior highs, two high schools, an alternative high school, an early childhood center and a community education center.

The St. Cloud district is almost triple the size of the Albert Lea School District, which has an enrollment of about 3,200 students.

Funk was previously one of seven interviewed for superintendent of Rochester Public Schools in May 2011.