Superintendent Search
So I attended the Hamilton search meeting tonight. Got there at 5:45 for a 6:00 start and there was no one there but a lone staffer. Finally Sherry Carr, Seattle Council PTSA president, shows up with food and 2 guys from Ray and Associates. (That woman never sleeps, I swear.) So it ended being me and about 7 other people. I'm hoping it was the revision of the schedule because it was just strange to have so few people.
The format was to go over the schedule of dates first.
Jan. 31 - all information from all sources will have been tabulated and a profile of a candidate would be presented to the Board at a meeting. The Board would then vote on a resolution to adopt this profile. So, there will be a Board meeting (although I assume truncated) between now and the next one in Feb.
About March 27th - Ray &Associates will bring the Board a list of semi-finalists, they think between 40-60 people. The Board will narrow this down to 10-12 to consider. Then they will narrow that list down to who they want to interview. The consultants said that number is up to the Board; it could be 3, it could be 6. They said the Board is considering, when they get down to 1-3, having a public forum to meet-and-greet but NOT to question the candidates.
Middle of April - Superintendent selection
I asked them if they thought this pace was too fast but they said not really and that it was important to get underway soon to have the biggest pool of candidates. They also said they have never had a failed search in their history.
They basically asked us 5 questions about the district, what we want in a superintendent, preferred management style, biggest challenges. We were also given a survey with 30 qualities and told to pick 10. This was hard because some items overlapped each other while some were not phrased as I would have liked (however there was an area to write your own). The consultants were both educators and both had lived and worked in this area (one guy had been superintendent at Tacoma).
I felt okay about the process because it was so intimate. I'm not sure how well it would work in a crowd. I am planning to go to one more to hear what other people say. By the way, the meeting that was to be at Eckstein (I believe on the Tuesday the 23rd at 8 p.m.) was moved to Summit K-12.
The format was to go over the schedule of dates first.
Jan. 31 - all information from all sources will have been tabulated and a profile of a candidate would be presented to the Board at a meeting. The Board would then vote on a resolution to adopt this profile. So, there will be a Board meeting (although I assume truncated) between now and the next one in Feb.
About March 27th - Ray &Associates will bring the Board a list of semi-finalists, they think between 40-60 people. The Board will narrow this down to 10-12 to consider. Then they will narrow that list down to who they want to interview. The consultants said that number is up to the Board; it could be 3, it could be 6. They said the Board is considering, when they get down to 1-3, having a public forum to meet-and-greet but NOT to question the candidates.
Middle of April - Superintendent selection
I asked them if they thought this pace was too fast but they said not really and that it was important to get underway soon to have the biggest pool of candidates. They also said they have never had a failed search in their history.
They basically asked us 5 questions about the district, what we want in a superintendent, preferred management style, biggest challenges. We were also given a survey with 30 qualities and told to pick 10. This was hard because some items overlapped each other while some were not phrased as I would have liked (however there was an area to write your own). The consultants were both educators and both had lived and worked in this area (one guy had been superintendent at Tacoma).
I felt okay about the process because it was so intimate. I'm not sure how well it would work in a crowd. I am planning to go to one more to hear what other people say. By the way, the meeting that was to be at Eckstein (I believe on the Tuesday the 23rd at 8 p.m.) was moved to Summit K-12.
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