Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School is in the market for a new principal, after school officials announced this week that interim principal Sean Mulvey will return to the school’s counseling department next year.

“He has done an amazing job in his short time,” superintendent of schools Richie Smith said Monday night at the regional high school committee.

Mr. Mulvey accepted the one-year position in July after former principal Sara Dingledy took a new job in superintendent Richard Smith’s office. At the time, Mr. Mulvey declined to accept a longer contract offer, saying he wanted to feel out the position.

Mr. Smith has engaged the New England School Development Council (NESDEC) to conduct the search for the school’s next principal, beginning Tuesday, he said. He also will form an advisory search committee of Islanders, although it won’t be as large as the one that resulted in Mr. Mulvey’s selection.

“We had about 40 people in our original search committee, and though people laughed about that, it actually worked out really well in that, in naming Sean as an interim, I felt like I had a really global amount of input,” he said.

This time around, Mr. Smith said, the search committee will be smaller but more experienced.

“I do plan on going back to the original 40 and asking them to join … and probably land at around 15 to 20 people on a search committee,” he said.

A former assistant principal at Tisbury School who has worked in guidance at MVRHS since 2019, Mr. Mulvey made it clear from the first that he was not seeking a multi-year contract to lead the school.

“The reason … that I put my hat in the ring, was initially so we could buy time to help with the search, [although] there is a chance that I might grow into this role and I might enjoy it,” he told the school committee at the time.

Mr. Mulvey’s decision to rejoin the high school guidance staff leaves the Martha’s Vineyard public school system with pending vacancies in two top positions: Mr. Smith announced this fall that he will retire at the end of June, and the all-Island committee has hired the Massachusetts Association of School Committees to search for his successor.

High school committee chair Jeffrey (Skipper) Manter voiced concern at the simultaneous openings, saying he felt the incoming superintendent should have a hand in hiring the next high school principal.

The majority of committee members, however, agreed to wait until the searches have brought forth candidates for each position before deciding how to proceed.

Also on Monday, committee members heard an update on the all-Island vote for the high school building project.

Last month, the committee voted to bypass the town-by-town legislative process for what’s called a district vote, in which all six Island towns hold a coordinated election on the same day with the outcome determined by a simple majority of the total number of votes.

The six town clerks have met and tentatively selected June 2 as the election day, high school project coordinator Sam Hart told the committee Monday.

The clerks now need approval from their respective select boards to confirm the date, Mr. Hart said.

The election is the final step in a years-long quest to renovate the school with help from the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA), which uses state sales tax revenue to reimburse communities for a significant percentage of school construction costs.

A majority vote in favor of the project would unlock some $100 million in MSBA reimbursements for the project, which has been estimated at more than $300 million to renovate the aging school and add a two-story classroom wing.

Firm estimates for the construction project are expected in mid-December, Mr. Hart said, and the MSBA deadline to submit the schematic design with costs is Dec. 18.