The Appleton Area School District Board of Education met 01/24/2022. One of the items on the agenda was an update on the Superintendent Search and Selection process. They spent some time going through the tentative schedule.
On 02/21/2022 they plan to review all of the applications that have been submitted. Board President Kay Eggert said they would likely choose 6 semi-finalists depending on the number of applications that came through.
They would then invite those applicants to participate in a first round of interviews on 03/02/2022 and possibly 03/03/2022.
The final round of interviews is tentatively scheduled for 03/08/2022 and 03/09/2022.
The Board is working with a Wisconsin Association of School Boards (WASB) representative named Louise Blankenheim to navigate the process of hiring a new Superintendent. Louise has recommended that, given the size of AASD, the second round of interviews include two advisory group each consisting of 10-15 individuals.
One advisory group would consist of district staff from all levels—administrators, educators, and support staff. The second advisory group would consist of community members—district partners, parents, and non-profits.
Kay said, “The intention is to have input from a variety of stakeholders, and so it’s how to do that; often it’s done by invite so you identify what stakeholder groups do you want to be included.” She, Chief Human Resources Officer Julie King, and Board member Kris Sauter were going to meet and figure out who would be in these advisory groups. Per Kay, “It’s a little tricky,” because they wanted to pull in people from different departments. She noted that they have a list from a business partners’ breakfast they held, and they had used that list when they invited people to participate in focus groups. She thought that was a resource they could use to identify people they thought would be helpful to be in the advisory groups.
The final round of interviews would consist of three time slots in which the three candidates would interview with the Board of Education as well as each of the two advisory groups. The individuals in the advisory groups could then share their feedback via Google spreadsheet. The Board would review that information and make a determination on a new superintendent.
Kay asked if there were any questions.
Board member Deb Truyman encouraged then to try to think outside the box a little bit when forming the community advisory group. She said they tended to have their go-to people, but she didn’t think that necessarily represented a majority of the community. She hoped they would have people in the groups that thought in different ways. She was concerned that if they used the same people they’ve always used they would get the same answers they always go, but “this is a big decision. I’d like some people on the committee that will ask tough questions, challenge in a kind way, but just make sure that true community questions get answered.”
Board member Ed Ruffolo asked how confident they were that they would get six or more applicants. Did that seem likely? He understood that AASD was an attractive district but there are also other districts that have superintendent positions open.
Kay said that the job was posted and had a February 14 closing date. As of 01/24/2022 some applications had come in but, “I can’t say with certainty and I don’t think anyone is saying it’s going to be overwhelming or underwhelming. It is what it is and we’ll just—we’ll wait and see what we learn.”
Board member Jim Bowman said, regarding Deb’s earlier comment, “You never know how cross functional your group is, how representative they are of our total district, but one possibility is to try to represent each geographic area.” He suggested possibly using aldermanic districts so that they could get people from the different geographic areas in Appleton. He thought there would be a basis for arguably saying it was a representative group because they would capture some of the natural thinking that residents have based on where they live.
Board member James Bacon wanted to make sure the groups were representative in terms of defining the number of parents vs other types of community roles and how many were teachers vs central office staff vs non-teacher representatives from the schools. He did think having some geographical diversity was important to make sure they were hearing some voices from all of the different schools.
He also wanted to know if the feedback given via spreadsheet would be confidential and given blindly or would individuals be aware of the feedback other group members had given.
Julie said that the feedback given would be completely blind. The individuals giving the feedback would be asked to filter their responses into three categories—overall strengths, overall areas of growth, and overall question.
James Bacon asked if the Board of Education would know the names of or at least some information about the people submitting the feedback, or would they only know whether it came from the staff vs community group.
Julie said that typically they have their feedback forms be completely blind.
James Bacon thought it would be helpful to know the different demographics represented in the feedback given, at least what the roles of the participants were.
Board member Kris Sauter said that, regarding Deb’s desire to have the groups be diverse, she thought they could have individuals who filled multiple roles.
Deb liked the idea of geographic representation and getting people from different areas of the city because Appleton was a bit city.
Kay thanked them for the input and said they would do their best to create the advisory groups.
Jim Bowman thought the process looked sound and rational and was good.
View full meeting video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBQw_0P6LX0
View full meeting details here: http://go.boarddocs.com/wi/aasd/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=CACQ6Q66D8CC
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