Consultant will guide superintendent search

Last updated Dec 19, 2006 12:0pm0

Realizing that selecting the district's chief executive officer is the most important task a school board undertakes, members of the Sisters School District's Board of Directors have decided to rely upon the services of a consultant to guide them in accomplishing the job.

At a meeting on Tuesday, December 12, board members agreed to retain the Executive Search Services division of the Oregon School Boards Association (OSBA) to assist them in their search.

OSBA Leadership Services Associate Director Betsy Miller-Jones will spearhead Sisters' superintendent search. Miller-Jones remarked that OSBA uses a process that echoes the one used by school board associations throughout the United States.

"The philosophy," she said, "is that the school board is in charge. We work for you."

OSBA does not function like a "headhunter" nor does it maintain a specific list of applicants, although it has candidates with whom it works and a broad mailing list. From time to time headhunters refer candidates to OSBA.

Miller-Jones explained, "We have a process that is very, very successful,"

She added that the process has proven itself over time and rewards the community for making perceptive decisions about what consists of a good match.

"The most important thing," said Miller-Jones, "is for there to be a good match between the superintendent and the board and the community. No one can come in from the outside and play that match-maker role. It's got to be a gut feel for all of you and for your staff and your community that it's the right person in order to have a strong match."

Miller-Jones estimates that there will be approximately 18 superintendent vacancies in the State of Oregon to be filled by May 2007. She anticipates that the OSBA will serve as consultants to about 12 of these searches. Two small school districts will conduct their own quests, and the remainder will be handled by Educational Service Districts (ESDs) and private consultants.

For the searches it conducts, OSBA will focus its marketing endeavors in Oregon, Washington and Idaho because salaries, the size of the school districts and the experience levels of administrators tend to match. The OSBA's track record shows these states to be where success is the highest.

"Your best successes are either from the state that you're in … or from immediately neighboring states where there's a lot of familiarity with the politics, the laws, the funding situations," she said.

For a district to find the right superintendent in today's market is serious business. Competition is fierce and fewer and fewer people are willing to become superintendents (see related article, page 27).

Marketing Sisters effectively will be critical in the pursuit to find the perfect person to fill the superintendent's shoes. Miller-Jones predicts that at the most 25 individuals will apply for the Sisters'position, 10 of whom will be from out-of-state. She adds that of the total applicants, eight or nine will stand out.

Miller-Jones feels adequate time remains for a thorough search culminating with a new superintendent coming on board by July 1.

"People looking for superintendencies are typically looking in the January, February and March time frame," she said.

Miller-Jones hopes the board will make its decision prior to May 1. If a district waits longer, candidates are often lost to other districts.

As she begins to develop the district's search, Miller-Jones will organize "qualifications meetings."

She told the board, "The law requires right now that you go to your community very early in the search and talk to them about what they would like to see in the next superintendent."

At the "qualifications meetings," teachers, administrators and community members will be questioned regarding qualities, qualifications, skills and abilities they want the new superintendent to possess. They will be asked to outline the biggest challenges the new superintendent will face and define their perceptions of what the district will look like in five years. From the answers received, a list of qualifications the district requires the new superintendent to possess will be formulated for use when advertising the availability of the position.

Miller-Jones feels that Sisters will see an excellent pool of candidates.

"Sisters is a very desirable community and location," she said. "My judgment is that this would be a very attractive position." She cautioned that she will reserve final judgment "until we get all of the pieces put together with salary and everything else."

The perilous path of a school superintendent

Glen Lasken and Jeff Smith well remember the difficulties in conducting a search for a superintendent for the Sisters School District. Both were members of the Sisters School Board when the district conducted searches in 2003 and 2004. The district's 2003 search proved unsuccessful, and the 2004 search resulted in the hiring of current superintendent Ted Thonstad.

Nationwide the number of potential candidates for superintendent's positions has been on the decline for the past several years, according to Oregon School Boards Association Leadership Services Associate Director Betsy Miller-Jones. Miller-Jones will assist the Sisters School Board in their search for a new superintendent (see related story, page 3).

"It is a very difficult and very challenging job for which the pay differential from another central office position or a high school principalship is not enough to give people the incentive to move," Miller-Jones explained.

Miller-Jones contends that being a superintendent can be a very dangerous career choice. She notes that a person who is a high school principal or central office administrator with significant financial obligations because he or she has a child in college and two more in line takes a huge chance stepping into a superintendent's position.

Miller-Jones said that often superintendents are blindsided by a crisis they never saw coming in their community or by a change in their school board's make-up. Often the board who hires a superintendent turns over, and the new board may decide that the current superintendent is not the right person for the job.

Consequently, the board negotiates to hire someone new.

Miller-Jones cautions that if the situation is not handled well, the current superintendent's reputation can be tarnished, and it can then prove very difficult for him or her to get another job. She adds that situations such as this one discourage qualified people from wanting to become superintendents.

What this all adds up to is that for the most part individuals are only willing to move into superintendencies at the ends of their careers.

"More and more, it's people later in their careers because they do see it as higher risk, and there are fewer people because the job is just very difficult today," Miller-Jones said.

She adds that the financial challenges that Oregon has gone through coupled with current political challenges, the demands of the No Child Left Behind Act and the uncertainty of current changes in the law and administrative regulations are pushing potential applicants away.

Miller-Jones concludes that being a superintendent is "no longer just a hold-a-ship-steady type of job."

Even with all of the drawbacks to becoming a superintendent, Miller-Jones notes that, "We still see a very solid number of very qualified applicants on any search."

She predicts that between 20 and 25 qualified candidates will apply to become the next Sisters School District superintendent.