As the Columbus Municipal School District looks to hire a new superintendent, board members are weighing whether to continue the district’s tradition of including the public in the interview process.
The district has held a forum for job finalists to introduce themselves to the public during the last three superintendent searches. Most recently in 2023, outgoing Superintendent Stanley Ellis was joined by two other finalists at Cook Elementary during the interview process when he was hired, where each presented their plan for the first 100 days in the position.
During a Wednesday school board meeting, representatives from the Mississippi School Boards Association, which is leading the superintendent search, asked the board of trustees if they intend to hold a similar forum this year.
“The reason I ask is because we’ve had applicants to say, ‘If you have that process, we’re not interested in your search,’” said Denotris Jackson, MSBA executive director.
MSBA Search Manager Tommye Henderson explained candidates in other searches have chosen to rescind their application instead of participating in a public forum to avoid disclosing their potential departure to their current districts.
CMSD Trustees James Richardson and Cynthia Brown both agreed with that line of thinking.
“If I were an applicant, I wouldn’t want to do it either, and we could lose good candidates on that one,” Brown said. “So I think that may be a process we can eliminate.”
Trustee Telisa Young reminded the board the names of the candidates remained private in the past until the time of the public meeting in order to make it easier on the applicants, though that shouldn’t be the top priority, she said.
“Our No. 1 concern is not necessarily the individual,” she said. “We want them to know we’re concerned about them, but our No. 1 priority is CMSD. Whoever is applying for the job, they know that comes with the territory.”
Giving stakeholders a chance to hear from the candidates also ensures the search process is transparent, Young said. That helps maintain, and maybe increase, public support for the district, she said.
“That’s just part of the process,” Young said. “I get what you’re saying as far as we don’t want to ostracize anyone, but if they’re serious about the job and serious about coming here, I just believe that we should at least have a very small community meeting.”
Trustee Josie Shumake reminded the board that Hilute Hudson, the current superintendent for Kemper County School District who was a finalist for the CMSD job in 2023, committed to attending the public forum that year despite holding a position in a district.
Forgoing a public forum could make it seem like the district is “doing everything in the dark,” Shumake said.
“They are our stakeholders, and we’ve got to have some kind of interaction with them for this selection because going all the way back three superintendent (searches), there’s always been something with the public,” she said. “… It’d be a real risk to change that.”
Board President Robert Smith said the board wants to be transparent with the public about the search.
“What (MSBA) offered was that they could do a citywide survey, send it out and then get input from there,” Smith told The Dispatch on Friday. “And then, we could have the full meeting … and present the three candidates, and once we … let them speak, you’d have a question-and-answer session, and then as a board, we would go back and then make the final decision from there.”
Smith said the board will make a final decision about including the public in the search during its special-call meeting at 5 p.m. Monday at Brandon Central Services.
Job vacancies in central office
Amid the superintendent search, as well as a districtwide restructuring and the start of several improvement projects funded by a $36 million bond, CMSD is also looking to fill eight vacant administrative roles in the central office as well as nearly 40 teaching jobs.
Open administrative offices, besides superintendent, include assistant superintendent, athletic director, testing coordinator, human resources director, assistant human resources director, public information officer and principal at Stokes-Beard Elementary.
Smith acknowledged the empty positions, but he said the board will be taking up personnel recommendations Monday to fill some of the positions. In the meantime, he said the district is working with what it has.
“It doesn’t look good, but at the same time, when things like this happen, you just have to deal with it,” he said. “We are on top of it. We have requests from the superintendent and assistant superintendent that keep us abreast on where they are with the vacancies.”
Smith credited the vacancies to typical causes of turnover, like administrators retiring after decades in the district. He said a new superintendent would hopefully return some stability to the district that could help slow that down.
“In the past, we’ve given superintendents a couple of years (on a contract),” Smith said. “Now maybe we need to look at three- or four-year contracts rather than just a couple of years … because we need stability in the district. The kids need stability in the district. The staff needs stability in the district.”
Young asked what MSBA is doing to ensure the district’s unique challenges, like its loss of administrative staff, are being communicated to applicants.
“So it’s a lot of ongoing issues, and they would have to understand the call and the assignment of Columbus because it will be daunting and challenging within itself,” Young said.
Jackson said the applicants are responsible for preparing themselves for the role by doing their own research.
“Through our questioning, we can determine who has studied and researched a district and who has not because (of) probing questions that we ask in the finance area, the achievement area (and) enrollment,” Jackson said. “There’s quite a few questions that reveal to us if the person has researched your district, and in fact, can locate it on a map.”
Timeline for search
The application window for superintendent hopefuls closes June 30. After that, Henderson said MSBA typically needs at least two-weeks to vet the applicants and make sure they meet the requirements to be a superintendent that are outlined in state law.
MSBA then passes on the qualified candidates to the board, who will evaluate them to determine finalists.
“For one, we want someone that knows curriculum, someone that’s been in a district that has at least a B-rating and has been successful in the places that they’ve been,” Smith said. “Hopefully we can get a seasoned administrator, a seasoned superintendent.”
One such “seasoned superintendent” could be Hudson, with both Smith and Richardson advocating Wednesday for MSBA to reach out to him about applying for the job.
“For one, I thought he did a heck of a job in his interview last time, so that’s why I mentioned his name,” Smith said. “… I’m hoping that he applied. I think he’d be good because he’s in a small district in Kemper County, but he has done well there.”
Smith said he expects the board will at least have the finalists determined by late July.
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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