Published March 18, 2021
By ALICIA KRUEGER
After signing the approval of agreement with Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates Executive Search Firm at a special meeting Feb. 26, the Carmel Unified School District board began its first two phases of the superintendent search process: “engage” and “recruit.”
The engage phase ran from March 1 until March 12 with HYA representatives Dr. Valerie Pitts and Max McGee conducting a planning session with the board, hosting 20-stakeholder focus groups and receiving over 600 survey responses in order to gauge what exactly CUSD wants from a superintendent. The search firm is in the process of analyzing this data and will present it to the board and community as a “leadership profile” at a special board meeting Friday.
“I think the leadership profile will give us a very clear idea of what our community wants as that was the whole point of the level of outreach HYA has had and the goal has always been to make sure we are answering to our community and multiple stakeholder groups,” CUSD board member Tess Arthur notes. “I have faith that the leadership profile will drive the type of candidates that we get as that is where the community really has spoken.”
The profile will also serve as a basis for interview questions and help the new superintendent in creating a 100-day plan. This plan is designed to guide the onboarding process of the new superintendent, the relationship between the superintendent and the board, and the goal-setting process.
Simultaneously, the recruit phase began Feb. 27 with the position’s posting on the Association of California School Administrators online career center. The posting was also published in the ACSA’s EdCal publication on March 1. Postings will remain up throughout the month as recruiting and advertising efforts continue.
The recruit phase will continue until April 9, when HYA presents a number of official candidates to the board to participate in the interview process. Candidate interview questions will be determined by board members at an open session board meeting in mid-April.
“The board is largely outside of this process right now,” board member Sara Hinds explains. “This is where HYA goes and does what they do best in terms of the recruitment phrase and the screenings, reference checks and interviews. Tess and I will continue to push out every Tuesday updates to the community so people can stay engaged and informed until the entire process comes to a close.”
As part of the application process, candidates will also be responding to written prompts created by Pitts that will ask candidates to respond and tackle a real-life problem. Responses will help HYA determine which candidates to present to the board April 9 at a special, closed session board meeting.
The new superintendent will be announced at a special, open session board meeting May 12 and the position will begin July 1. The public will not know who finalists are until one is selected.
“There is a resonating voice out there that really wants to get this right and so do we,” Arthur says.
For updates, see the CUSD website at www.carmelunified.org.
