STARKVILLE — School officials set Sept. 12 as the date to begin advertising for a new superintendent for the Starkville School District, with the position closing Oct. 31.
The board has contracted with the Mississippi School Board Association to conduct the search, at a cost of $9,500. They met with MSBA representative Harold Fisher during Tuesday”s meeting to make some decisions needed to get the process rolling.
Among them was the advertisement date and time and how they plan to develop the criteria for the kind of administrator they want to hire.
Once criteria are set, the MSBA will handle the majority of the search. They will accept applications, screen them for qualifications through an interview process, conduct background and reference checks, and then present all this information to the school board.
The school board will select their top candidates, conduct the actual interviews and name the next superintendent. Fisher said he will conduct the search and will make his reports to the board as a whole, not to individual members.
“This elevates it above political pressure,” Fisher said of the search process.
Board President Keith Coble agreed.
“What you do (protects) the integrity of the process,” Coble said.
Fisher recommended the school board get community and stakeholder input when developing the criteria for the search for the next superintendent, something the board already declared their intention to do.
“This is a conscious effort on the part of the board to get as much information from the community as they possibly can,” Fisher said of public involvement in the development of search criteria.
On Pickett Wilson”s motion and Eddie Myles second, the board voted to hold meetings by Aug. 15, preferably Aug. 11, to get input from community members, faculty and teachers and administrators. The school board will not be present for these meetings, but Fisher will give them a full report of what is said.
“With the board present, the community sometimes wants to talk to the board rather than share input on criteria,” Fisher said.
The board will take input from these meetings when they develop their search criteria. They also will provide information on the school district to be used in developing the application and the brochure that will accompany the job announcement.
No date has been set yet for when interviews will be conducted or when the board hopes to have a new superintendent in the office.
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