Clovis schools begin search for new superintendent but is the deadline ‘too fast?’
Within the next couple of months, Fresno County’s second-largest school district will find its newest superintendent through a subcommittee of three board members rather than hiring a consultant or search firm.
The school board hopes to name Clovis Unified’s top official by mid-to-late March – a deadline that raised some concerns and questions Monday from some of the board’s newest trustees during a special board meeting to set guidelines for the superintendent search.
“It just seems like it’s too fast,” board member Clint Olivier said. “I don’t want us to look incompetent to the community because we’re rushing.”
Olivier and Trustee Deena Combs-Flores, both elected in November, questioned the ability to draw in quality candidates and amass enough community feedback in that time frame.
Clovis Unified School District named the current superintendent, Eimear O’Brien, in May 2017 after a less than two-month search. After six years, she’ll be retiring at the end of the school year to help care for her aging mother in her native country Ireland, leaving the next few months to find her replacement.
It has been and can be done in that time, said Trustee Steven Fogg, who was on the school board that hired O’Brien.
The district also tapped O’Brien’s predecessor Janet Young in about two months.
“It has to be done,” Fogg said. “This is an urgent matter – not to be rushed –but it’s urgent.”
Both O’Brien and Board President David DeFrank contended that the deadline allows time for the new hire to shadow O’Brien and for the district to fill positions that may come, especially if the new superintendent is hired from within the district.
Even if the new hire isn’t a CUSD employee, it’s important for them to be a part of the hiring process of the district’s other employees, which takes place ahead of the new school year, board members discussed.
Leaning local
While Clovis Unified will invite all applicants, Fogg reiterated that the Central Valley has great candidates who can lead CUSD, one of the state’s high-achieving school districts.
“I don’t think we need to search internationally to find that one great person,” he said. “I think they may be closer than you think.”
The last two superintendents – O’Brien and her predecessor Young – worked in Clovis Unified for decades before they became superintendent.
Between teaching, working as a principal, and serving in the district office, O’Brien racked up 26 years in the district, two-thirds of her 39 years in education. Before Young’s hiring, she was a 32-year veteran in Clovis Unified.
And this isn’t the first time the district won’t use a consultant to aid its superintendent search.
The district didn’t use a search firm to find Young in 2011 or O’Brien in 2017; it placed ads in statewide publications.
“We want control of what we do, who we hire, and how we do the process because it’s important,” Fogg said. “This is an important enough task that we don’t want to give it to anybody else. We want to control how we do this.”
Subcommittee to gather ‘ongoing input’
Leading the search for the new superintendent, DeFrank and board trustees Hugh Awtrey and Tiffany Stoker Madsen will serve on the subcommittee that garners community feedback, brings that information to the board and recommends candidates for the interview stage.
One of their first tasks will be planning ways to collect community input, including through surveys and community events or meetings that are already scheduled.
“Clovis Unified values community and parent input on a wide range of issues, so we have a lot of preexisting forums to obtain that input,” DeFrank said.
Finding out what community members are looking for in the next superintendent will guide board members’ interview questions and decision-making.
The board will receive “ongoing input,” as Fogg described it, until the board makes its decision.
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