GISD chooses search firm for new superintendent News Staff Wed, 06/19/2024 - 4:41 pm
(THOMAS WALLNER | THE GRAHAM LEADER) Former Sunnyvale ISD superintendent and Texas Association of School Administrators president, Doug Williams, speaks Thursday, June 13 with the Graham ISD Board of Trustees as a representative of Impact Education Specialists. IES was chosen Monday, June 17 as the search firm for a new superintendent for the district.
Thomas Wallner editor@grahamleader.com
The Graham ISD Board of Trustees took the next step in the search for a new superintendent by hiring Impact Education Specialists as a search firm for the position.
The board made the decision Monday, June 17 after hearing from three search firms over two meetings – IES, Region 9 Education Service Center and Texas Association of School Boards.
Former Sunnyvale ISD superintendent and Texas Association of School Administrators president, Doug Williams, spoke to the board Thursday, June 13 as one of four representatives of IES.
“Our base fee is $7,500 and then partner travel will be really the big expense,” Williams said. “It's 135 miles here. We'll keep up with travel when we come here. The posting is $200 on Texas ISD to advertise. The only other expense is if you want to pay for candidate travel when they come in.”
The company is new, having performed five superintendent searches after being established in July 2023.
“The searches that we have done so far are school districts that are really similar to (Graham),” Williams said. “We were in Iowa Park (and) we conducted a search for them. We conducted our first search in Ponder, which is a school district of relative size. Ponder has got about 1,600 kids and (is) growing. We just finished in Muenster. Muenster is smaller, but still that small town feel.”
Other former and current superintendents that make up the firm are Kevin Worthy of Royse City ISD, Stan Surratt of Lindale ISD and Blake Cooper of Commerce ISD. Williams said it will be a statewide search to find the next superintendent for Graham, with a preliminary timeline of having a new superintendent by early December.
The company will host a workshop with the school board members to establish a profile of what they want in a superintendent.
“We're going to ask you to identify three reasons a prospective superintendent should apply here, and we're going to express that from the board's point of view. We think that's important. ...We want them to hear your voice,” Williams said. “The second thing we're going to ask you (is) we want you to identify three qualities or characteristics you believe are important for your next superintendent. We're going to repeat that process in what we call our community input sessions.”
The company will maintain weekly communication with the board which will update them on the search process, how many have applied for the position and provide reminders of upcoming dates regarding the position.
“You are going to be a part of the decision making process from the start, and we're going to be able to outline that with you,” Williams said. “Because you're dealing with four superintendents that have a combined over 60 years experience as superintendents, if you guys go with us, we are going to treat you like our board. ...That's the only way that we know how to work with school boards.”
The job will be posted online at texasisd.com and tasanet.org. A flier will also be created from the profile made in the first meeting with the school board members.
“We're going to post the jobs, but we're not going to sit and just see what's coming in. We're going to make sure that we are aggressive in going out and trying to find the best candidates possible,” Williams said. “Now I will say this, we do not have a preset list. ...We're going to start from ground zero.”
The search firm wants feedback from staff and the community and will meet with a cross section of members within the community picked by the district board of directors.
“You'll provide those names, you'll provide contact, and then we'll invite them to come to that session,” Williams said. “Those sessions are pretty simple. There's nothing magic about them. We're going to ask them, ‘What are the strengths of Graham, what are some areas to improve and what qualities and characteristics do they believe?’”
The information will then be provided in an executive summary to the board before the firm starts the interview process so they can use those answers to tailor interview questions. The firm also will request the report to be available online for transparency.
The firm will use a numeric approach and scoring system for candidates to narrow down candidates. They will have the candidates submit a five-minute video to speak about themselves and why they want to be superintendent in Graham.
“The applicants will be screened according to the criteria and qualifications that you set up. ...Following that, the candidate rating sheet is going to be provided to you at a meeting, after the deadline, to apply,” Williams said. “We're going to get all of the data in place. We're going to bring you the candidate rating sheet. We're going to start doing some preliminary reference checks.”
The scoring system used by IES was one of the reasons the board members chose the company for the search.
“It felt like Impact’s process was maybe a little more analytical. They have a scoring system where we get to determine this is what we prioritize. They will come in and if it’s 50 candidates, they will have an initial score for all of those and we can say ‘Well, we only want to see the top 10,’” Board President Chris Blanton said.
After the last interview, the search firm will assist with the deliberation process and how many candidates they might want to bring in for a possible second interview. The company will work all the way up until the finalizing of the contract for a new superintendent with the district’s attorney.
Another reason the board was interested in IES was due to the fact that they would not take on another mid-sized district superintendent search in the area if chosen by Graham.
“We will not take on a search of a similar nature to yours, because we don't want to be both fishing in the same pond, so to speak,” Williams said. “(For) example, I've been contacted by Breckenridge and if I go with y'all, I will not seek Breckenridge just because (they are the) same size school district, same locale, and so that's where we are.”
Board members Kristina Pettus said IES was a perfect fit for both the board and district.
“I just felt like Impact was so customized to us, too,” she said. “…We are a newish board and none of us have done this before. I think that guidance might be useful, and TASB might be capable of that, too. I just didn’t get the same feeling.”
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