School Board Notes 11.27.06 - Superintendent Search Firms
School Board Notes 11.27.06
Three executive search firms pitched their services to a Board of Education committee on Monday to help the district search for a superintendent. The committee included board members Mark Sanchez, Eric Mar and Dan Kelly, and community members Jan Masaoka, Eunice Azzani and former Mayor Art Agnos. At its next regular meeting, December 12, the board will select one of the firms to lead the search for a new superintendent.
The three firms interviewed were the Executive Search Services of the California School Boards Association, an organization that lobbies for and provides services to school districts; Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, a national search firm specializing in education; and Leadership Associates, a California-based firm that specializes in superintendent searches.
All three proposed structures that involved first, a period of public engagement and intensive discussion with the board, then recruiting through a variety of means 25 to 50 qualified candidates, and finally, presentation to the board of three to 10 finalists.
All firms agreed there should be significant public input in determining the qualities the district needs in a superintendent. But there were significant differences over how open the process should be. Making public the names of those under consideration would significantly shrink the pool of candidates, recruiters said. Some of the most qualified candidates might be happy to take the opportunity if it came, but wouldn't want to risk their current jobs to get it. Several recruiters cautioned against having Community Advisory Committees actually take part in the decision, as CACs were perceived as more prone than school boards to leak candidates' names.
California School Boards Association
CSBA conducted SFUSD's last search, in which the district hired Arlene Ackerman, who resigned from last fall amid controversy over her leadership. CSBA was also involved in recent searches in Los Angeles and Culver City, CA. The organization characterizes board involvement as "the heart" of its service.
CSBA's public engagement process includes Web-based surveys of community members, community meetings, site visits to schools to speak with staff and administrators, and meetings with other major city leaders. The organization then compiles a public report on its findings and, working with the board, begins a search.
Molly McGee Hewitt, director of the firm's executive search services, stated her commitment to providing candidates of diverse backgrounds. The organization prides itself on hiring of women and minorities. CSBA representatives cautioned the pool of candidates might be smaller if the interview process were open, or if a Community Advisory Committee — which could potentially leak candidates names — were involved. "It's more risky, but we can mitigate that somewhat by having them sign confidentiality agreements." Hewett said.
Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates
The firm, based in Glenview, IL, the only national firm to interview with the district, has done 500 school district searches throughout the U.S. It stressed its aggressiveness in seeking out the widest pool of candidates, a strategy based on calling 30 to 40 education leaders a day to ask for suggestions of who might be good candidates, and following up all recommendations.
The firm also underscored its commitment to long-term placements, saying most of its executives served 10 years or longer, compared with the average tenure for a superintendent in an urban school district of three years. "There's a correlation between the stability of leadership and the performance of students," partner Bill Attea said.
Attea said the firm would work with the board to structure a process that includes extensive public engagement. "We highly recommend that the board make the decision and does the interviews, with the community involvement on the front end of the process," he said. "You get a much, much stronger candidate pool." However, he said, the firm has worked on superintendent searches that ran the gamut, including those in which candidate interviews were not only conducted by CACs but were open to the public. Ultimately, Attea said, the decision would be up to the board.
Leadership Associates
Having placed 130 superintendents, Leadership is smaller than the other firms. But it stressed its local ties and its familiarity with California's unique budgeting and policy considerations as an asset. The members who would lead the search, Jim Brown and Larry Aceves, were formerly superintendents in the Bay Area, in Palo Alto and San Jose, respectively.
Leadership prides itself on the quality of its candidates — a quality it credits, in part, to a strict policy of confidentiality. The firm proposed a public engagement process of five days of public input, in which members would be at the district from dawn until dusk meeting with community members. However, the firm won't work on a search in which there is an open interviewing process. "If an open community interview is part of the process, we're not the right firm," Brown said. "People trust us when we go recruiting that this will be kept confidential."
The firm recently completed a search in Sacramento that it said was similar to that of that SFUSD, and is completing one in Pasadena, which had significant community interest and input. The firm also completed searches is Hayward, Monterey and Irvine that were unsuccessfully initiated by other recruitment firms. One of the most important factors in a successful search, Aceves said, is board members' agreement on what they are looking for. "If the board is not on the same page with one another, let alone the superintendent, it's not going to work," Aceves said.
- District Considers Superintendent Search Firms
- California School Boards Association
- Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates
- Leadership Associates
Three executive search firms pitched their services to a Board of Education committee on Monday to help the district search for a superintendent. The committee included board members Mark Sanchez, Eric Mar and Dan Kelly, and community members Jan Masaoka, Eunice Azzani and former Mayor Art Agnos. At its next regular meeting, December 12, the board will select one of the firms to lead the search for a new superintendent.
The three firms interviewed were the Executive Search Services of the California School Boards Association, an organization that lobbies for and provides services to school districts; Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, a national search firm specializing in education; and Leadership Associates, a California-based firm that specializes in superintendent searches.
All three proposed structures that involved first, a period of public engagement and intensive discussion with the board, then recruiting through a variety of means 25 to 50 qualified candidates, and finally, presentation to the board of three to 10 finalists.
All firms agreed there should be significant public input in determining the qualities the district needs in a superintendent. But there were significant differences over how open the process should be. Making public the names of those under consideration would significantly shrink the pool of candidates, recruiters said. Some of the most qualified candidates might be happy to take the opportunity if it came, but wouldn't want to risk their current jobs to get it. Several recruiters cautioned against having Community Advisory Committees actually take part in the decision, as CACs were perceived as more prone than school boards to leak candidates' names.
California School Boards Association
CSBA conducted SFUSD's last search, in which the district hired Arlene Ackerman, who resigned from last fall amid controversy over her leadership. CSBA was also involved in recent searches in Los Angeles and Culver City, CA. The organization characterizes board involvement as "the heart" of its service.
CSBA's public engagement process includes Web-based surveys of community members, community meetings, site visits to schools to speak with staff and administrators, and meetings with other major city leaders. The organization then compiles a public report on its findings and, working with the board, begins a search.
Molly McGee Hewitt, director of the firm's executive search services, stated her commitment to providing candidates of diverse backgrounds. The organization prides itself on hiring of women and minorities. CSBA representatives cautioned the pool of candidates might be smaller if the interview process were open, or if a Community Advisory Committee — which could potentially leak candidates names — were involved. "It's more risky, but we can mitigate that somewhat by having them sign confidentiality agreements." Hewett said.
Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates
The firm, based in Glenview, IL, the only national firm to interview with the district, has done 500 school district searches throughout the U.S. It stressed its aggressiveness in seeking out the widest pool of candidates, a strategy based on calling 30 to 40 education leaders a day to ask for suggestions of who might be good candidates, and following up all recommendations.
The firm also underscored its commitment to long-term placements, saying most of its executives served 10 years or longer, compared with the average tenure for a superintendent in an urban school district of three years. "There's a correlation between the stability of leadership and the performance of students," partner Bill Attea said.
Attea said the firm would work with the board to structure a process that includes extensive public engagement. "We highly recommend that the board make the decision and does the interviews, with the community involvement on the front end of the process," he said. "You get a much, much stronger candidate pool." However, he said, the firm has worked on superintendent searches that ran the gamut, including those in which candidate interviews were not only conducted by CACs but were open to the public. Ultimately, Attea said, the decision would be up to the board.
Leadership Associates
Having placed 130 superintendents, Leadership is smaller than the other firms. But it stressed its local ties and its familiarity with California's unique budgeting and policy considerations as an asset. The members who would lead the search, Jim Brown and Larry Aceves, were formerly superintendents in the Bay Area, in Palo Alto and San Jose, respectively.
Leadership prides itself on the quality of its candidates — a quality it credits, in part, to a strict policy of confidentiality. The firm proposed a public engagement process of five days of public input, in which members would be at the district from dawn until dusk meeting with community members. However, the firm won't work on a search in which there is an open interviewing process. "If an open community interview is part of the process, we're not the right firm," Brown said. "People trust us when we go recruiting that this will be kept confidential."
The firm recently completed a search in Sacramento that it said was similar to that of that SFUSD, and is completing one in Pasadena, which had significant community interest and input. The firm also completed searches is Hayward, Monterey and Irvine that were unsuccessfully initiated by other recruitment firms. One of the most important factors in a successful search, Aceves said, is board members' agreement on what they are looking for. "If the board is not on the same page with one another, let alone the superintendent, it's not going to work," Aceves said.
Labels: GreatSchools.net, School Board Notes, SFUSD Politics
1 Comments:
what do you make of gwen chan' statement? is she posturing or is she really fed up? is she a serious candidate for superintendent? if so, why are we hiring an agency?
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