Stakeholders who gave their input on the search for Columbus Municipal School District’s next superintendent say the board should choose someone who can improve staff morale, retain teachers, improve the district’s flagging image and engage more with the entire community.
CMSD’s school board hired the Mississippi School Boards Association to conduct the search following the board’s vote to not renew then-superintendent Philip Hickman’s contract in November. Hickman was fired earlier this year.
As part of the search, MSBA hosted multiple stakeholder meetings, including with parents and community members, teachers and staff, district administration and the Columbus-Lowndes Chamber of Commerce, all to collect public input which they released in a report to the school board this week.
Board president Jason Spears confirmed board members had received the report and will discuss it at an April 25 meeting, where they will also review the 21 candidates who have applied for the superintendent’s position.
“We’ll go through the reports and then we’ll receive the different information about the candidates that were qualified in the pool (of applicants),” Spears said.
Spears added those will be discussed in executive session, but the board still hopes the final three or five candidates will present before community stakeholders, where they can specifically address the issues raised in the report such as staff morale, the district’s curriculum and community engagement.
“Our intention is to have an open hearing for the final three to five candidates … to showcase their ideas of curriculum and working with the … key issues brought forward in some of these stakeholder issues,” Spears said.
Stakeholders across the board were concerned about retaining teachers and improving staff morale with attendees at each meeting, as well as the school board, listing those as top priorities for the incoming superintendent. Business leaders, community members and district personnel also said improving the district’s image should be a high priority, and attendees at all but the teachers’ meeting prioritized community engagement.
Additionally, teachers and staff said the new superintendent should address student discipline and communicate regularly with teachers.
Communication was a theme of the survey, with attendees at multiple meetings saying the new superintendent should be visible, approachable, a good listener and able to make connections with students and the wider community. Business leaders and teachers also stressed the importance of finding a seasoned educator, with teachers specifically saying the superintendent should not have “forgotten what it was like to be a teacher.”
Attendees at the meetings for staff, the Chamber of Commerce and the community also asked whether the search for the superintendent would be open to the public. Teachers specifically requested the final candidates make presentations before stakeholders.
The report also included numbers of people who attended each meeting as well as people who filled out online surveys. More than 110 district staff attended the meeting, with another 18 taking the survey online. There were 33 attendees at the meeting for parents and community members, with an additional 36 filling out the online survey.
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