LATHROP – Lathrop High School will not have a new principal until the end of the school year.

That’s according to Manteca Unified School District Superintendent Jason Messer.

A job posting announcing the opening of the position to interested applicants will be done “in the next couple of weeks,” the Messer said.

The job announcement will run for “four months or so” and then the candidates for the position are interviewed “probably in the spring,” he said.

The search for a replacement for David Chamberlain, Lathrop High’s former principal who resigned in December, was not started right away because “most principals don’t want to move until the end of the school year,” Messer explained.

School administrators usually don’t end their contracts during this time of the school year, he said.

He added, “More than likely, we’ll get a principal from another district.”

Former Sierra High principal Rick Arucan, who retired in 2008, and interim district facilities director Bob Wallace have filled in on the interim for the vacancy created by Chamberlain’s departure.

The former Spartan principal informed the district that he was resigning his post to move to Southern California.

“That’s all he let us know,” Messer said of Chamberlain’s resignation notice.

He did not indicate whether he was resigning to take up a new post, the superintendent said.