The school board selected The Cosca Group to help find the next
Morgan Hill schools superintendent.
The school board selected The Cosca Group to help find the next Morgan Hill schools superintendent.
Controversial superintendent Alan Nishino announced his retirement in late May. While his contract ends June 30, Nishino will stay on as interim superintendent through August 30 and the new superintendent could start September 1.
The Cosca Group will be paid just over $21,000 for their services, which include finding several candidates for the position, providing an interim superintendent if needed, doing the whole search again if no candidate is selected the first time around and conducting a new search if the superintendent they bring on doesn’t work out during their first year, according to a contract between the company and the district.
During a special school board meeting at 2 p.m. Tuesday, the board will meet with Cosca to discuss the parameters of the search, including the timeline and level of community outreach.
Trustees said they chose Cosca for the firm’s emphasis on communication and openness.
“I felt their plan for outreach was excellent – by far the best,” said trustee Julia Hover-Smoot, who sat on the board’s search firm subcommittee that interviewed three firms and recommended Cosca. “We didn’t have to pull thoughts out of them.”
Frank Cosca, founder and president of The Cosca Group, is a former superintendent and principal. The first thing he’ll do with the board is lock down a schedule, then take time conducting a “mini-audit” to determine what the district’s needs are, he said. They’ll also take a look around similar districts – such as the other five unified districts in Santa Clara County – and compare superintendent contracts to come up with a reasonable offer. Nishino is the third highest paid of six unified school district superintendents in the county. He started in 2005 with a base salary of $185,000, and that grew to $206,404 this year after built-in 3-percent annual raises that come with a satisfactory or better performance review by the board. The raise is one of the more controversial aspects of his contract.
Cosca will also have the board provide him with a list of Morgan Hill residents for the firm to talk with.
“We’d prefer it if they haven’t stopped ’til they reach 300, 400 people,” said Cosca, who will be Morgan Hill’s consultant. “Then we talk to each of the groups or individuals, and bring everything back to the board in public. Every word will be typed and presented to them.”
Hover-Smoot liked that there was “no filter,” and said she was impressed with their reputation of being fair and honest.
Board President Don Moody said he liked Cosca’s size. The firm has 24 partners and 10 associates throughout California, according to their cover letter.
“I wanted the group to be small enough that we would get good attention, but quite a bit bigger than the group we used last time” to add more research capabilities, Moody said.
The group used last time was RJ Gatti Associates, a husband and wife search team that brought forth Nishino in 2005. The Gattis were among the three firms considered for this search.
The third firm considered by the board was Leadership Associates, a large California firm.
The Cosca Group will be dealing with a much more experienced board than the board four years ago. Four trustees were elected mere weeks prior to the start of the search, and none of them had conducted a search before. Now, all but trustee Bart Fisher know the ropes.
Trustees are optimistic they’ll be able to fill the spot in the 11 weeks before Nishino’s interim term ends.
Cosca said it’s not an unreasonable goal, noting that his firm wrapped up a Del Mar search in just 12 weeks. But Cosca said whoever is found will likely need time to separate from their current district and that could push back the new superintendent’s start date by a month.
The trustees have yet to decide how an interim superintendent would be selected if a new one hasn’t been found by then, but said they would consider an in-house person.
