School District Seeks Input on Superintendent Characteristics

The is looking for community input as it screens applications from candidates hoping to be the district's new superintendent.

Current District Superintendent Randy Charles plans to retire at the end of the 2011-12 school year. The board is currently accepting applications for a replacement through Sept. 16.

In the meantime, the board has created a survey to get a sense of what the community would like to see in a new superintendent. (Click here to reach the survey page.)

"What the community wants is very important," Board Member Lori Gibson said. "We are wanting someone the community can accept."

The survey is available until Sept. 11. The results will be pulled on Sept. 12 and prepared for the Board of Education, but will not be released to the public, said Charles.

He said he fears the applicants may try to cater their responses to what the results showed people wanted in a superintendent.

"My concern is if we make that public, not only would your typical readers learn that, but the applicants would learn that," he said. "Our job isn't to assist the applicants in their pursuit of this position. Our job is to select the best candidate. We want to make sure the candidates haven't been coached either intentionally or unintentionally."

There are three different surveys, one for district employees, one for parents with children currently enrolled in the district and one for community members without children enrolled in the district. All three surveys have the same questions, but the answers will be kept separate.

"Our board represents all of these groups," Charles said.

The 25 survey questions include statements that people must rate on a scale from "not important" to "extremely important." Statements include: 

• The superintendent should be a "people person" with personal management abilities and have proven ability to work in the area of human resources.
• The superintendent should have previous successful leadership as an administrator in helping create a goal-oriented district through collaborative goal setting. 
• The superintendent should be visible and accessible to students, staff community and Board.

The district is accepting applications until Sept. 16. Charles would not say how many people have applied for the position. The board is planning to narrow the field of applicants and start interviewing people during the next several weeks.

Once the board has selected a group of finalists, they  will meet individually with three different groups of people: parents and community members, teachers and staff and administrators, who will give the board their impression of the person. The district will ask for volunteers for these committees in a few weeks.

"Those stakeholder groups won't be ranking individuals or making recommendations to the board, but what we will ask them to do is give some feedback on each candidate," he said.

The Board of Education hopes to select a new superintendent by the end of November.