Business owners and community members want a Columbus Municipal School District superintendent who is approachable, supports teachers, and creates a positive climate in the district.
That was the takeaway from the last stakeholder meeting in the Joe Cook Elementary auditorium Monday night, where a dozen community members expressed their expectations for a new superintendent. Tommye Henderson, superintendent search manager for the Mississippi School Boards Association, led the discussion, following a day of meetings with separate departments in the school district.
“This is a small crowd, but you’re still important people,” Henderson said. “I’m doing eight searches right now at one time, and there are two boards that are not using stakeholder input. They’re just doing the search. So I wanted to let you know your board sincerely wanted to hear what you have to say.”
MSBA was chosen by the district board of trustees to lead the search for the next superintendent in January, following the departure of former-Superintendent Cherie Labat in August.
Dennis Dupree served as interim superintendent from September until March 20, when Assistant Superintendent Craig Chapman took over the role of interim superintendent. Chapman will continue to serve in the role until June 30, or until a new full-time superintendent is hired.
Henderson said the report that is generated during the superintendent search should help with finding the right candidate for the job.
“In many searches, I’ve found two groups of people,” Henderson said. “There are people who want to be a superintendent. And they don’t care where, they just want the title. And then there are people who want to be the superintendent. So that’s what your board is looking for. Someone who wants to be ‘the’ superintendent.”
Henderson also said the report could help to inform the new superintendent as they move forward in the district, letting them know concerns from the community and business owners immediately upon taking over the role.
Henderson asked those in attendance about strengths of the district, areas of the greatest priority, important characteristics in a superintendent and more. She said the questions have been the same for all of the stakeholder groups, and the answers will be turned over to the board of trustees to aid them in their search.
Several audience members let Henderson know priority areas that need to be addressed immediately by the new superintendent. The comments included standardizing disciplinary procedures across all schools, advocating for school funding, and supporting new teachers that are joining the district.
“We need to look at new teachers in particular,” Martin Hatton, Dean of Education at Mississippi University for Women, said. “ … There’s a lot of new teachers nationwide. About 50 percent of them are new teachers in their first three years. We really need to look at what we can do to support our teachers, to see what are their strengths and what are their weaknesses.”
Another community member, Martha Jo Mims, agreed with Hatton, but said that supporting all teachers needs to be high on the priority list for the new superintendent.
“Teaching has always been hard, but I think it’s harder now,” Mims said. “I think they need continued support no matter what their age is.”
A running theme throughout the comments was openness and approachability for the new superintendent. Henderson said the word “approachable” has come up in every single stakeholder meeting she has held for the district, whether she has been talking to maintenance staff, teachers, principals, clerks or parents.
Another similarity Henderson has noticed throughout all of the superintendent search stakeholder meetings has been avoiding a candidate who sees CMSD as a “stepping stone.” She asked the community members how they felt about superintendents being in it “for the long haul.”
“I have mixed feelings about that,” Hatton said. “If we had someone come in and turn this from a C to an A in two years, and establish a good foundation for someone else to come in long-term, I would rather that than have someone come in and sit for ten years and not move the needle. I agree with you on one level, but on another level, I would also love to see someone come in, even for a short time, if they did something amazing.”
MSBA opened an anonymous public survey earlier this month for anyone in the community with a vested interest to complete, and it will close tomorrow afternoon. The survey is available on the MSBA website, msbaonline.com, and through links posted on the CMSD Facebook and Twitter pages.
The survey has six questions, which are the same questions Henderson asked the focus groups, but with one additional question.
“There’s one section … online that we don’t ask about,” Henderson said. “It says, ‘as search consultants, do we need to know anything else?’ If there’s a concern you have, that is also in there, and I do report that to the board.”
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