On 01/24/2022, the Appleton Area School District Board of Education discussed the timeline for the Superintendent search and reviewed the proposed interview process. It was reported that in addition to the Board of Education, interviews would also be conducted by two advisory committees one of which would be comprised of community members which would include district partners, parents, and non-profits.
Board President Kay Eggert stated that participation on the committee would be by invitation only. Board member Deb Truyman expressed a desire for the committee to include individuals who were not the district’s typical “go-to people”, and the board discussed the idea fostering diversity by making sure that members of the committee are geologically spread out across the school district.
Details regarding the master list of people who would be eligible to receive invites was vague. Board President Eggert suggested that a list existed from a business partners’ breakfast that had been held, but that was mentioned early in the discussion before the concern about fostering diversity was brought up. It was never definitively stated that that was the list names would be drawn from, nor was it made clear who exactly was on that list.
I reached out to Board President Eggert and asked her what steps parents and community members could take if they wanted to be considered for a spot on the community advisory committee.
She responded with a high-level overview of the search process, but I think it fair to say she didn’t answer the question I asked. The part of her email that most closely touched on my question stated, “In a district our size, it is highly recommended that the advisory committees be created through an invitation process in order to gain a broad representation of community stakeholders. The Board has also specifically expressed that parent representation should reflect a range of geographic locations, school grade levels and student needs.”
I emailed her back and said, “It sounds like interested parties are not going to have an opportunity to have a way to let you know that they would like to serve on the committee. Is that an accurate understanding?”
I also asked for a list of the people they have sent or intend to send invites to and asked for some background on how the list of invitees had been created.
As of the publishing of this post, Board President Eggert has not responded.
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