The man called the “preferred candidate” to succeed Dr. Sally Pryor as superintendent of Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 visited April 8, and teachers and parents got a chance to meet him.

Philip V. Bender, currently superintendent of New Prairie United Schools in New Carlisle, Ind., spent the entire day in the district, visiting Washington and Field elementary schools and Emerson and Lincoln middle schools and meeting parents and community members at an evening reception.

Bender also had lunch with teachers union representatives and attended a late afternoon reception for teachers at Emerson.

The District 64 board of education had announced last week it had selected a preferred candidate, without naming Bender, but would hold off on making him an offer until the school community met him on Thursday, April 8.

“It was a great day,” Bender said Friday. “I was very impressed with the faculty and staff, and also impressed with the representatives of the union. They seem to have kids’ best interests in mind.”

He spent the early part of the day visiting almost every classroom at Washington School.

“There were two things that caught my eye,” he said. “In every building, the teachers were smiling and happy and totally engaged in what their students were doing. Everyone spoke positively about the schools.

“And the second thing, all of the children had smiles on their faces. They seemed to be happy about what they were doing, and enjoyed where they were at and the activities they were involved with.”

Janet Mital, vice president of the Franklin School PTA and a board member of the District 64 Elementary Learning Foundation, attended the evening reception and said that the 40 to 50 parents and community members who were there at the time each had a few minutes to chat with Bender.

“He seems very enthusiastic, and he seems to think the wave of the future is to foster the creativity of the kids—I know there’s a big push for that now,” she said. “It’s going beyond the basics to teach them critical thinking skills.”

When she came in, he was talking about the strategic plan, saying he wanted to make sure teachers have what they need to implement it effectively, she said.

Mital didn’t know what to expect going into the reception, and thought Bender might make a speech, but the format was more like a receiving line.

“It’s nice they (the board) sort of solicited our input but I don’t think I had enough of a conversation with him to fairly assess him,” she said.

She suggested the board might have brought in multiple candidates to give speeches so that the community might have had more go to on.

In a conversation with a friend, she said, they discussed the fact it might have been nice if the board had picked a woman, though she acknowledged Dr. Pryor, who is retiring, would be a tough act to follow.

Bender’s district lies between Michigan City and South Bend, Indiana, and has about 2,800 students in three elementary schools, one middle school and one high school. He was named superintendent in 2008, after serving as assistant superintendent since 2006.

He received his bachelor’s, master’s and education specialist degree from Indiana State University, and earned his doctoral degree there in 2006. He was named Indiana Teacher of the Year by the Congress of Parents and Teachers.

He wrote a book, “Perceptions of Ethical Public School Leadership in Indiana: Ethical Leadership Issues That Face Educational Leaders in Indiana and Across the Country,” which was recently released.

Regarding the topic of his book, Bender said, “What I do should be an open book to all the people involved in the school system. It’s my way—you must be true to yourself. By being true to myself, I have to be honest with those people I work around.”