How to Get to Seven: The Rest of the Replacement Process

On Tuesday night, the Board interviewed thirteen people who have expressed interest in being the replacement for the District D vacancy.  Two people withdrew; the rest came to the Board room in 15-20 minute increments to discuss their backgrounds and vision for the school district as well as to answer questions from the Board.

The candidates consisted of a wide range of citizens from within District D boundaries.  I had a great time listening to them describe their interest in education and their responses to all of our questions. 

The Board convened in executive session following the meeting to learn of the statutory guidelines for the next steps.  No candidates were discussed in this session; statute doesn't permit this, and in any case the Board wants these discussions to be fully public.  The Board settled on having two additional special meetings to accomplish three objectives: 1) ensure all discussions of the candidates occurs in open session, for both transparency’s sake and for the benefit of the public; 2) to nominate finalists to give the Board time to follow up individually with candidates before the appointment process, and 3) to appoint the new Director prior to the statutory deadline of March 16^th.

The first meeting will occur on Monday the 11^th.  There is essentially one item on the agenda: to nominate finalists.  Board members may choose to participate by phone if they can’t attend in person.  The Board will nominate up to five finalists, with each person nominated requiring a second.  Because of this, there may be fewer than five.  Each Board member will have a chance to speak on behalf of any of the candidates after the nominations.

The second meeting will take place on Thursday the 14^th.  The Board will have another chance to interview the finalists.  After that, a vote will take place that will formally fill the vacancy.  After that, the new Board member will be able to vote with the rest of us to elect a new Vice President.

I am looking forward to the final steps in this process.  We have a very high-caliber pool of candidates from which to choose.   I welcome input from any citizen regarding any of the candidates that were interviewed in Tuesday night.  

Searching for a good board member: the latest

Here’s an update on the process to interview candidates for the vacant District D Board of Education seat.

Rather than having Board members try to agree on a few candidates to interview, President Carson has suggested that we interview every candidate to give everyone an opportunity to address the Board.  That way, every applicant can outline what he or she hopes to contribute to the Board.  The rest of the Board liked this idea.  Tomorrow evening, March 5, we will interview all of the candidates for 15 to 20 minutes, beginning at 4:30 pm.

All candidate interviews are open to the public, although each candidate will not be permitted to watch the others’ presentations.  Each will have a chance to distribute written materials.  The interviews will be conducted in the Board room at Wilcox.  After all the interviews are completed, the Board will discuss how we want to narrow the field down to a few finalists.

Here’s the schedule, past, present and future: 

• Online application period closed: February 22^nd
• Application review ending: March 1^st
• First round of interviews 15 minutes each: March 5^th
• Second round of interviews: TBD
• Final selection and appointment: March 14^th

 Note that because of the statutory deadline, the Board needs to complete interviews within 60 days of former Director Gerken’s resignation, which is March 16^th.  The regular meeting scheduled for March 19^th would be too late, so the meeting that day will be moved to the 14^th.