Morgan Hill trustees will interview six candidates vying for the
district’s vacant superintendent position Saturday.
Morgan Hill trustees will interview six candidates vying for the district’s vacant superintendent position Saturday.
Twenty-one people applied for Morgan Hill Unified School District’s top job, according to the search firm The Cosca Group. During a closed session meeting Tuesday, the Board of Education chose six of them to come back for interviews.
Based on Saturday’s interviews, the board will choose between one and three finalists to come back for further interviews Monday. Then, it’s likely that the board will visit the top finalist’s district later next week.
Board members said they were impressed with the experience and characteristics of the applicants.
A good majority of the applicants were from the Bay Area, including two from Gilroy, they said.
The Cosca Group representative Steve Goldstone said the six interviewees were diverse ethnically, and were a good gender mix, too.
“It’s a very mixed group as far as experience goes. It’s kind of a diverse group, not only ethnically but male, female and experiences. All had very, very high recommendations from the people they had worked for and with,” Goldstone said.
But how will the board know whether their candidates will match the qualifications the community would like to see? Based on a 41-page report detailing what some 40 community groups’ take on the matter, Morgan Hill would like to see a new educational leader who is collaborative, diversity minded, unifying, has an open door policy and who puts kids first.
This compilation of characteristics was packaged into the superintendent position brochure, which says the district wants “a dynamic educational leader” who places value “on bringing people together for a common cause” and has “a strong commitment to high levels of student achievement.”
Board members agreed that the candidates matched the brochure to a tee.
“I think they followed the brochure very well,” Trustee Kathy Sullivan said.
“The candidates that we received fit nicely with what we perceived to be the desires of the board and community,” Trustee Peter Mandel said.
Trustee Julia Hover-Smoot agreed.
Sullivan said experience was a top concern for her.
“In terms of the financial crisis that the state of California is facing and the less money we’ll have, and it looks like even next year is going to be a bad year. (The new hire) shouldn’t learn on the job during a crisis situation,” Sullivan said.
“I just want to stay true to the community,” Trustee Shelle Thomas said.
The community wants that too, but some non-elected leaders in the district are apprehensive about the decision making that will unfold over the next week. This is the least open superintendent search process in recent years. The search four years ago that brought on controversial leader Dr. Alan Nishino featured a 16-member community committee that advised the board. This one features a three-member committee made up of a representative from each of the district’s three labor groups.
“This board made the decision on the previous superintendent,” said Kathy Keith. A senior account clerk in the district office, Keith will represent the Service Employees International Union’s Local 715 during the final candidate interviewing session Monday. SEIU represents about 400 classified employees, from bus drivers to custodians.
“(Classified employees) are looking for someone that’s approachable, they’re looking for equality. Under the previous superintendent, there’s been a great divide monetarily between other bargaining units, administrators and classified.”
As for her role as one of three advisory interviewers that will recommend a candidate to the board, Keith said she was devising questions using the 41-page report on the community’s input.
“We want someone who generally cares about this district and this community,” Keith said.
Latino parent group leader Julian Mancias said parents weren’t sure that Cosca would pay attention to their interests.
“Or for that matter if the board was paying attention to our interests,” he said. “If two weeks from now, Superintendent ‘Mr. John Smith’ is announced … how can we be assured that you listened to our concern?”
Special education parent and advocate Linda McNulty, too, would have liked to have seen a more open process, but she feels confident in the board.
“I’ve had many conversations with the board about special education. I know they get it. I do feel confident in the board making the decision. Probably a little more than if (it were an open process). Everybody’s got their thing, and we’re all fighting for the same dollars.”
The seven-member board is nearly identical to the one that hired Nishino but for first-term Trustee Bart Fisher, who was elected in 2006. This isn’t the first time he’s combed over resumes and interviewed applicants, either – his background is in human resources. But Fisher says he’s no ace in the hole.
“The other members have got a comfort level with this process in having done it before. And the process of doing this in a public education, government context is different from private industry.” he said. Fisher said Board President Don Moody, Trustees Mandel and Mike Hickey each have management and organizational development experience in their careers and Thomas, Sullivan and Hover-Smoot have experience within the district.
“We all make unique individual contributions. That’s the strength of this board. If everybody had my same background and experience, I’d be a little scared, frankly,” Fisher joked.
Goldstone said that 21 applicants was a good number considering the time of year and the fact that there will be three people outside the board who will meet the potential candidates.
Even while this search is the most closed Morgan Hill has recently seen, the labor group interview was strongly discouraged by Cosca for fear it would deter good candidates from applying since their current employers would find out about it. The firm has built a reputation on closed searches.
Frank Cosca, the firm’s founder, said in July that they could gather between 10 and 60 applicants. Each search varies greatly, he said then.
Nishino retired in June. The board did not name an interim superintendent, though Deputy Superintendent Bonnie Tognazzini has led the district since Nishino finished his interim contract Aug. 31.
