The school board will meet today to select a search firm to find
Morgan Hill’s next superintendent.
The school board will meet today to select a search firm to find Morgan Hill’s next superintendent.
Search committee chair Peter Mandel, along with fellow trustees Don Moody and Julia Hover-Smoot, interviewed three California-based search firms Thursday. Each of the three firms would cost the district about $23,000, Moody said. The firms would be looking for a replacement for Superintendent Alan Nishino, who announced his retirement in late May. His contract will end June 30, and he’ll serve as interim superintendent through August.
One of the three firms in the running is RJ Gatti Associates, which suggested Nishino in a search conducted by the district in 2004 and 2005.
The other two search firms still being considered are Leadership Associates and The Cosca Group.
Board President Don Moody surmised from community input so far that there was concern that a Gatti assignment would result in a “Nishino clone,” he said.
“Being objective, it wouldn’t,” Moody said, adding he’d factor the concern into his decision.
Moody would look for a superintendent different from Nishino because the district’s needs were different from what they were four years ago when he was brought on, he said. For example, curriculum is more standardized now.
Trustee Julia Hover-Smoot agreed.
“We are not the same district as we were five years ago. (Nishino) was what we needed to move forward,” she said.
Moody said he’ll be looking for someone who’s a good listener to help repair fractured employee and community relations, Moody said.
Hover-Smoot agreed, saying she’d be looking for “somebody who can support our relationship with the unions. That was injured this year, and we didn’t want that to happen.”
While the search firm could be the same, the firm will be dealing with a much more savvy board than they did four years ago. All but trustee Bart Fisher were on the board during the last search, which began in late December of 2004, just six weeks after the November election of Kathy Sullivan, Peter Mandel and Julia Hover-Smoot. Moody, who was appointed to replace exiting trustee Tom Kinoshita in October 2004, admitted their “green” status was detrimental to the search process.
“We blindly accepted what they said,” he said of the Gattis. “For instance, I did not Google ‘Alan Nishino’ myself.
“There were things that were brought to my attention, and I’m not saying it would have impacted my choice, but they came to my attention after. We had made the decision, and it was, ‘Well, did you know this?'” Moody said.
In hindsight, he would have liked to be more prepared when confronted with disgruntled teachers or parents who’d dug up their own information on the embattled superintendent, moody said. As in Morgan Hill, Nishino had trouble with employee groups at the Alameda Unified School District.
Board members are optimistic that they’ll be able to fill the spot in the 11 weeks before Nishino’s interim term ends. The trustees have yet to decide how an interim superintendent would be selected if a new one hasn’t been found by then. The trustees noted that they would possibly consider an in-house person, and each of the three search firms assured them they had interim superintendents available who could fill the spot.
What: School board meeting
When: 5 p.m.
Where: District office board room, 15600 Concord Circle
