The Seattle School Board faces a crucial decision: Should it hire a permanent superintendent or an interim to succeed outgoing Superintendent Brent Jones?
Several board members think the district shouldn’t be tied to a timeline to hire a permanent superintendent by the time Jones leaves Sept. 3.
Seattle is already entering the superintendent search market late in the game. Districts advertise vacancies in the fall, from around November to January, and start screening, interviewing and hosting community engagement sessions in February, with an eye toward a July 1 start date for their new leaders, said Julia Rafal-Baer, the CEO of the ILO Group, a firm that tracks superintendent turnover and women in district leadership.
Jones, who has led the district since May 2021, announced his departure March 17.
A few urban school systems, including Chicago, are also looking for new superintendents. So, too, are nearby districts such as Bremerton and Northshore.
With a smaller pool of qualified candidates to draw from, a tight timeline and the possibility of significant changes on the School Board in the fall — four of the seven seats will be on the ballot in November — Rafal-Baer said the board might want to consider an interim superintendent.
Rafal-Baer cautioned that a compressed timeline could compromise the thoroughness of the candidate recruitment process. She stressed that it might lead to reduced community involvement, rushed candidate assessments and the risk of overlooking crucial compatibility concerns.
The district will also have less time to sell itself to prospective candidates. Then there’s the chance that a new School Board majority could come in the fall and fire a new superintendent they had no role in selecting, she said.
Board director Michelle Sarju raised similar points at Tuesday’s School Board meeting to take some of the first steps to find Jones’ replacement.
The board voted to authorize President Gina Topp to work with the administrative staff to prepare requests for proposals from executive search firms to help with the search. It also approved the criteria for evaluating the companies.
Sarju, who is not running for reelection when her term ends this year, said the timeline didn’t look realistic, nor did it leave room for family engagement. She also did not think the current board should select the next superintendent and supports hiring an interim.
“We need a new superintendent, and I don’t believe we have to rush, rush, rush, and possibly not make the right decision,” she said.
Topp had laid out a tight timeline to find Jones’ replacement, with the deadlines for the requests for proposals due April 8 and a School Board review of the proposals April 9. The final firm will be selected April 23.
The board’s agenda timeline said community engagement sessions to develop the next superintendent’s leadership profile would follow the firm’s selection. The board expects to advertise, interview candidates and visit the finalists’ districts in the spring.
The online resolution said the board hopes to finalize a contract with Jones’ replacement in late spring or early summer.
But other board members, including District 7 representative Brandon Hersey, who is also not running for reelection, expressed concern about the timing, which he said was not optimal to recruit a quality candidate, with still-uncertain state funding and timeline for labor negotiations with the teachers union. At the same time, he said he was “not super-stoked” about an interim.
“We need to be really thoughtful about the process and not box ourselves into a corner,” Hersey said.
Samantha Fogg, the co-president of the Seattle Council PTSA, the umbrella parent-teacher organization, said it was less about the timeline and more about the quality of candidates who respond.
“We are looking at a situation where we need to find someone who is going to lead us through complicated and challenging times,” Fogg said.
Rafal-Baer said selecting the right leader is essential.
“These jobs, they’ve always been demanding,” she said. “But we are seeing levels of challenge that we’ve never seen, and it makes the process of selecting a leader more important than ever.”
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