The search for a new superintendent for Boardman local schools, came to an end last week when the district named Chris Neifer to step into the role.

Neifer is currently the superintendent in East Palestine and before that, he was a principal at East Palestine High School. Neifer also spent 11 years in the Warren City School District.

He tells 21 News he wanted to branch out and take on a new challenge for two reasons.

"I've spent 28 years in education and I've always had to split my time, split my focus between my family and the community that I live in, and the community and family that I've worked with. This gives me the opportunity to take that focus all into one area," said Neifer. "The second is just that marriage of philosophies, you know, I've always subscribed to the idea that good is the enemy of great, and we in our lives, stop at good so often, and Boardman Local Schools just exemplifies that greatness, they use excellence in everything that they do," he said.

Neifer has guided East Palestine through the pandemic and then the toxic train derailment that upended the village over the course of the past year. He says those events plus his years of experience has given him plenty Of leadership skills to take into this new role.

"I certainly can say that I'm battle tested, for sure. We had such great opportunity to collaborate with so many people and the ability to really take that support and to be able to work through all of those different avenues and that ability to communicate those pieces and to gain that trust in the community in East Palestine with everything that we went through," said Neifer. "I think certainly is something that'll be a great asset, as I come into Boardman Schools and you know, stepping into a district that's slightly bigger than, you know, East Palestine," he said.

Neifer says he plans to work with the four overarching goals in Boardman School's strategic plan to keep the schools on track.