School board hires Huxley firm to find next superintendent

GETTING LATE

But that's somewhat of an aggressive timeline for you as well knowing that we're in that spring window. We don't feel like you're late in the search, but if we drag this out for too long you're definitely going to lose some candidates.”

Shannon Bisgard, consultant for GLS

FORT MADISON – The Fort Madison School District board has quickly launched a search for the district’s next superintendent.
The board met in a workshop Wednesday night to consider hiring a search firm to help navigate the district and community in bringing the new leader yet this spring.
Current Superintendent Dr. Erin Slater accepted a position last week with the Johnson City, Tennessee school district as its new superintendent.
The board heard from one search firm and hired that company Wednesday night.
School board president Josh Wykert said one other company inquired about providing services to the district.
The board hired Grundmeyer Leader Services out of Huxley, Iowa on a unanimous vote after an hour-long interview with Shannon Bisgard, a consultant with the company.
GLS has been hired by more than 80 districts and colleges in the state and has a 90% outstanding rating, according to Bisgard. The contract with the district will be $16,617. That represents 1/8 of Slater's current salary with the district.
He outlined a six-week hiring process that would include community engagements through “stakeholder surveys”, team interviews that would include parents and teachers, and school board interviews that will be held in closed sessions until a final candidate is selected.
With the hiring, advertising for the position will start in a basic form this week and then a more substantial position will be listed in multiple state and national search outlets.
The period for accepting applications will begin tomorrow and run through April 12. The board will then review the candidate pool the week of April 13.
“I would expect this to get between 10 and 20 candidates,” Bisgard said. “Based on some of the searches we’re in right now and the size of the district.”
Board screening of candidates will take place the week of April 21, just a month from now, with formal interviews of final candidates taking place the week of April 28.
“The proposed hiring timeline is what we put together looking through what we thought was a realistic timeline,” he said. “But that's somewhat of an aggressive timeline for you, as well, knowing that we're in that spring window. We don't feel like you're late in the search, but if we drag this out for too long you're definitely going to lose some candidates.”
Bisgard said he would expect the salary range for the Fort Madison position, based on the current salaries of superintendents of 10 smaller districts and 10 larger districts in enrollment higher and lower than Fort Madison, to be about $190,000 to $210,000.
The board will be setting additional meetings to fine tune the specifications around the hiring process, including finalizing dates and salary ranges, and what the makeup of team interviews will look like.
The board met Monday to start the search for the hiring firm before hiring them on Wednesday.