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Saturday, March 20, 2010

Selecting a superintendent - sharing experiences

Seideman: What I learned from Newton’s superintendent search - Newton, Massachusetts - Newton TAB


...Most of the time and effort were spent on the leadership profile that would define what we were looking for in a superintendent. Our consultants, Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, told us our search was unsurpassed. Would anyone expect anything less? We’re Newton and this is the way we do things when it comes to our kids’ education.
However, a quick Google search for “leadership profile” and “HYA” will yield dozens of profiles nearly identical to ours, from the biggest to the smallest school districts, coast-to-coast. They all want what we want — educational leaders who are risk-takers who can integrate technology and sell the system to the public. All of them.
After going through this process with so many different school systems in recent years, why didn’t HYA just tell us what it knew we’d ultimately get to? Was it really a search for leadership qualities? Perhaps it was a means to justify a consulting contract or a way of selling the process, rather than the result, to the public. After all, there was no guarantee a search will lead to favorable results...


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1 comment:

  1. When HYA lead our Montgomery County Superintendent search in 1999, it wasn't Jerry Weast the brought us. Rather they lead our Board of Education of offer the job to someone who had, not once, but twice filed for personal bankrupcy. The most recent just months before our BOE offerred this individual the job.

    After their failure to properly research the candidates came to light our BOE withdrew its offer. Then we went off, in a big hurry to fill the job, and came up with Weast.

    Weast was NOT our first choice, and AHY did and incompetent job in leading use through our search in 1999.

    Bob Astrove

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