New London — East Hartford Assistant Superintendent Cynthia E. Ritchie is poised to be named the new superintendent of New London schools this week.

The Board of Education, acting on a recommendation by a search committee, will take a formal vote on Ritchie’s appointment, pending negotiation of contract terms, at a school board meeting on Thursday.

Ritchie, who was not immediately available to comment, has served as the assistant superintendent of elementary curriculum, instruction and assessment in East Hartford since 2014 and oversees 10 elementary schools, according to the East Hartford school district website. She previously served as a principal and administrator in Salem.

School board member and superintendent search committee member Jason Catala called Ritchie a “rising star” who made an immediate impression with the committee.

“She has a proven record. I’m looking forward to casting my vote to support her,” Catala said. “I think she is going to demand accountability. Everything about her screamed New London. She was asking us questions about people’s positions — what people are doing. It shows she is interested in coming here to make a difference.”

The East Hartford school district is nearly double the size of New London with more than 7,000 students and 1,300 employees at 16 schools. New London by comparison has about 3,645 students enrolled in the district.

Members of the 15-member search committee, guided by the school district’s human resources department, recently voted to recommend Ritchie as superintendent after posting the position nationwide and conducting a monthslong search that narrowed a field of 27 applicants to two candidates. Multiple members of the committee confirmed Ritchie's selection Tuesday.

In an op-ed written for The Day, Board of Education President Mirna Martinez, writing on behalf of the search committee, said the two finalists were each interviewed and asked to develop presentations on prioritizing district and state goals. A subcommittee of five people also visited the home districts of the two finalists, touring the schools, observing the candidates at work and talking to co-workers.

“The committee is confident that we have found the right person to lead NLPS both now and into the future,” Martinez wrote in her piece for The Day.

Ritchie would replace interim Superintendent Stephen Tracy, who has led the district since the surprise retirement last year of Superintendent Manuel Rivera. Rivera is now a school board member who recused himself from the superintendent search process.

The search committee is composed of a mix of board members, school administrators and community members.

Search committee member Melissa Ford, a New London resident and former member of the East Lyme Board of Education, said Ritchie was “an out-of-the-box thinker who understands southeastern Connecticut and is really excited about the job.”

“Everyone we’ve spoken to couldn’t say enough good things about her,” Ford said. “The things they are doing in that district are impressive.”

Both Ford and committee member Mathew Greene, a local attorney and probate court judge, praised the process that led to the committee’s recommendation.

Greene was a member of a prior search committee that hired a firm to assist in the superintendent search process. That committee recommended the hiring of Chicago educator Terrence P. Carter in 2014. The school board rescinded its job offer to Carter when it was revealed that he had plagiarized portions of his resume and inaccurately claimed he had earned a Ph.D.

“This time around was different,” Greene said. “This was a very rigorous process where the candidates had to think on their feet. We got a much better idea of the candidates. The HR Department did a wonderful job in setting up the process.”

An outside firm was hired to perform a background check while committee members were allowed to perform their own research. Details of what the background checks and research entailed were not available Tuesday.

Ritchie came to East Hartford in 2014 from Salem, where she was serving as director of student achievement, academic programs and professional development for the school district following four years as the district’s elementary school principal.

She also worked in Old Saybrook, where she served as both a remedial reading and language arts consultant, English learner and Title 1 coordinator and a language arts department head. She started her teaching career as an elementary school teacher in Enfield.

Ritchie holds four separate degrees in education and six various Connecticut teaching and leadership endorsements, according to her biography on the East Hartford school district website.

Other members of the search committee contacted for this report declined to comment until after Thursday’s school board vote.

g.smith@theday.com