The school district is seeking volunteers for stakeholder groups who will help to evaluate candidates for superintendent, starting with the one candidate the board has already decided to bring in early.
Twenty parents and 15 other members of the community are sought to be a part of the “stakeholder groups.”
Anyone interested must send an email to [email protected] by April 21.
Interview timeline
April 24 — Administrator and teacher/staff committee training
April 28 — Community and parent committee training
April 29 — Administrator and teacher/staff interviews
April 30 — Community and parent committee interviews
May 5 — Community forum introducing the candidate (if necessary)
The Skaneateles Board of Education is back on the path toward finding a new superintendent for the district.
The board voted to appoint Bill Speck as search consultant for the superintendent hire, Tuesday. The board also agreed to interview a particular candidate early at Speck’s recommendation.
Speck is the district superintendent of the Cayuga-Onondaga BOCES and lending his expertise on school administrations to districts looking to hire a superintendent is part of his job, Board President Kathryn Carlson said.
Speck’s services will be free to the district, though the resolution to appoint him did include the possibility that he be reimbursed for expenses.
He has already provided the district with one candidate (whose name has not yet been released), who board members agreed to interview ahead of a more traditional search process.
“Mr. Speck has asked us to challenge that normal process a bit. He has informed us that shortly after his interview with us he was approached by someone who was very interested in the Skaneateles School District. He believes that this person will be an excellent match for our district. The problem is that this person is currently interviewing with other schools that are further along with their search process,” Carlson said.
Board members were universally supportive of interviewing the candidate, while also maintaining their plans for a larger search.
It is an “exciting opportunity,” Board Member Sue Benjamin said.
While there are qualified candidates out there, finding a “true visionary,” is not easy, Board Member Evan Drefuss said.
“Mr. Speck’s candidate is somebody that is probably talking to three or four school systems and once and I think is going to be hired very quickly. I think we owe it to our school system to talk to this person,” Dreyfuss said.
The board did consider using Speck as a consultant when it started its superintendent search the first time, in 2012, Carlson said. However, at that time, he was also working as acting superintendent for the Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga BOCES as well as running the Cayuga-Onondaga BOCES. Instead, the board opted to hire the Warner Center for Professional Development and Education Reform from the University of Rochester.
Like it did in 2012 for its original search, the board will: collect applications with the help of its search consultant, do background checks, conduct interviews, arrange for the candidates to be interviewed by stakeholder groups (including teachers, administration and community members) and narrow the field down to a final two or three candidates, who then be introduced at public forums.
The board had originally planned to start the search again in the fall of 2014 and announce the new superintendent in the spring of 2015. However, it did discuss moving the search up to this summer at the recommendation of board member Geralyn Huba earlier this year. Appointing a search consultant was the board’s first step toward developing a timeline for the process.
Interim Superintendent of School Judy Pastel, who was originally hired for just the 2012-13 school year, has agreed to stay with the district through the end of the 2014-15 school year, unless a new superintendent would be ready to start sooner.
