After a four-and-a-half closed session Monday night, the school board unanimously approved the hiring of Ray and Associates Inc. to conduct the search for a new superintendent.
Though the majority of the session was used to discuss other matters, representatives from the Cedar Rapids-based firm appeared before the board behind closed doors to discuss the search, which will cost the district a total of about $31,000.
Board President Bill Walsh said Tuesday morning that the firm will begin working immediately to help find a replacement for who will leave the district at the end of June. The next step in the process will be individual meetings between board members and the firm to discuss what they want in a new leader.
When asked why a private firm was selected for the search instead of the Illinois Association of School Boards, which is currently helping fill two open assistant superintendent positions, Walsh said the board felt Ray and Associates more closely matched the district’s needs.
“We felt that using this type of firm for this important of a position made the most sense,” Walsh said. “Although there is more of an investment with Ray and Associates, their capabilities were more in line with our needs to fill this role.”
by the board last week. President Gary Ray told the board he would conduct the search himself and touted his firm's 37 years of experience in the field. The firm was also the only one to offer a two-year guarantee on whomever should replace O’Donnell.
Ray will employee an online community survey early in the process to gauge what members of the community need and want in the next superintendent. Walsh said he isn’t sure when that process will begin, but a timeline of community input opportunities will be determined soon.
Better yet, have all those Phds in the District who are making lots of money actually conduct the hiring process themselves. For what they are being paid they must certainly have learned those skills in college, right?
I would also hope that the community survey is performed pretty quickly. It's nearly April, and the logistics involved in all of this are pretty time consuming. It would be unfortunate to have to throw a new Superintendent into the mix without giving him or her at least a month to get acclimated. Yet another decision by this Board that perplexes me.
from Ray and Associates website "In recent years, our firm has been asked to recruit non-traditional candidates for some of our client districts." with a link http://rayassoc.com/ntc.php
FTR, I don't know the educational backgrounds of our BOE. I apologize in advance to any of them who are overpaid PhDs. :)
Since you really seem to have an issue with this process, you need to take it up with the Board. It's not like the building principals, or any other administrators for that matter, can tell the Board, "We got this. We'll recruit, interview and hire the Superintendent."
Unfortunately, the "job market" really doesn't have anything to do with this hire. High level positions (in publice education or the private sector) are not really subject to the whims of the economy. You aren't going to have companies saying, "Gee, we can't find a good CFO in this market." Executive-level positions, and this would be the public education equivalent, don't work like that. I am interested though in what non-search options might be available to the district. I routinely see CEO, CFO, divisional president, etc. positions advertised in industry publications. Those positions are also typically part of a more traditional search with a firm. I wonder if there is anything like that for education.
It will be interesting to see how they go through the process and who they select to do it. Since it seems everyone wants us to be compared to the east, i find it ironic.
If that means we might get someone who has a more progress approach to education, I would be okay with that. We've really got to think about kids as individuals with potential to be cultivated instead of numbers in an assembly line that need to pass inspection or be tossed into the reject pile.
Again, why pay higher salaries for District employees who have advanced degrees if they are unable to do something as simple as coordinate the hiring process? Using an outside firm has been done before and resulted in failure. Why continue to do it the same way? Are you joking that the overall job market doesn't affect positions like this? As school districts struggle financially they're less able to pay higher salaries for these positions. Ever heard of someone having negative equity in their house? That too affects whether a candidate chooses to relocate for a particular job. It's laughable for you to say that the economy doesn't affect situations like this when the last super left because he wanted to spend more money on expansion that what the voters wanted in this bad economy.
Search firms are most commonly the way in which positions at this level are filled. You don't post a help wanted ad in the newspaper. It just doesn't work that way. I agree that there were other options that should have been considered (IASB, as an example), but Robyn said it best...we're not going to see principals or district personnel coordinating candidates for the BOE to consider. No, not joking -- this type of position is not impacted in the same way by the job market. Are you aware of the types of candidates, their histories, their education and their salaries/pensions that are going to be considering this type of position? It's common for "retired" administrators, with six-figure pensions, to simply move to another state and come out of "retirement" for another administrative position. They are not limited in retirement by the same constraints that are typically placed on retired teachers when it comes to drawing a pension and working. These people are not likely to be struggling with "negative equity - lol! And Behlow made out just fine in the North Shore. : )
I think that the link actually implies that the firm works to find candidates whose experience lies outside the education field. Read private sector experience. While I agree that much of what a Superintendent does is fiscal and business related I personally would prefer that the person charged with running my child's school district knows their pedagogy and understands that their job is to empower the employees of the district to create the the best learning environment for our children with the given resources. I would hope the board would chose someone that at least can make an informed decision when they weighing budget vs. education decisions.