With six months left on Superintendent Carolyn McKennan
’s contract, Morgan Hill School Board trustees will come
together on Thursday to interview potential superintendent search
firms.
With six months left on Superintendent Carolyn McKennan’s contract, Morgan Hill School Board trustees will come together on Thursday to interview potential superintendent search firms.
During their Dec. 6 meeting, the new board – newly elected Trustees Kathy Sullivan, Peter Mandel and Julia Hover-Smoot plus appointed Trustee Don Moody, Board President Shellé Thomas and Trustees Amina Khemici and Mike Hickey – listened to a recommendation from a subcommittee composed of Thomas, Hickey and Sullivan.
The three had met with representatives from the five firms that sent proposals to the district: California School Boards Association Executive Search Services (CSBA); Leadership Associates; Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, Ltd.; Rudy and Janet Gatti, Board Advisors; and Zampi and Associates.
The subcommittee recommended the board narrow the candidates down to CSBA and Rudy and Janet Gatti, Board Advisors.
“This was the first thing I had to do as a board member, and I hope all things are as easy as this was,” Sullivan said. “We all came to an agreement pretty readily.”
Although only the subcommittee interviewed representatives from each of the five firms, all trustees were given copies of the proposals.
“This is the creme of crop. When you look through the resumes and see the number of district they’ve served … and each of them came highly recommended,” said Thomas.
Thomas said one firm the subcommittee eliminated, Leadership Associates, did not advocate involving the community in a superintendent search.
“An Illinois firm didn’t believe in having community involvement,” she said.
“And I firmly believe, as is our job, the superintendent has to be a reflection of the community … That is essential in arriving at who can best serve this district.”
Mandel and Moody questioned the recommendations of the subcommittee.
“Let’s add a third one (search firm),” Moody suggested.
The subcommittee was charged with narrowing the field down to two firms, which the full board would then interview in depth and decide which to hire.
Mandel said he had would also like to interview three firms; he said he had some concerns about the two recommended firms.
“A couple of characteristics are really prevalent in superintendent searches these days, and one is confidentiality,” he said. “A lot of candidates have jobs, they don’t want to burn bridges and go public … you could logically lose a number of highly qualified candidates unless you keep confidentiality. It would be difficult to do that with CSBA … I see why they would scare off a whole lot of people and we could lose a lot of potent candidates.”
“I also don’t know that I want to limit the search to California. I worry that CSBA or a boutique shop like Rudi and Janet, that they don’t have the capacity … So Leadership Associates, just from reading the material, they have the potential for doing a national search.”
Sullivan said the subcommittee considered many aspects when making its recommendation.
“We had decided to give two recommendations, but if you want to bring in more we could do that,” she said. “We did ask some specifics about confidentiality and opening up the search to candidates from out of state … Ninety percent of all California superintendent positions are filled by people currently living here; the main reasons for that is the cost of living.”
Trustees voted unanimously to interview CSBA, Leadership Associates and Rudy and Janet Gatti, Board Advisors.
The meeting is Thursday, Dec. 16, from 4-6pm, at the district office, 15600 Concord Circle.
