01/12/2015 – Superintendent Search Update

01/12/2015 Work Session
 DeKalb Schools Superintendent Search
 Timeline for 2014-2015
 Letter From PCU
 Message From State Rep Scott Holcomb
 Message From DeKalb CEO Lee May
  DCSD Kick-Off Meeting & Documents (v3)
   DCSD Proposed Work Plan Draft
   DCSD Stakeholder Engagement (v4)
   DCSD Interview Questions for Board Members Community Engagement

Dr. Melvin Johnson (Board Chair)
At the last board meeting, the board approved PROACT to be our superintendent search firm.  Gary Solomon, CEO of PROACT, and James Guerra, VP of PROACT, will lead us through the plan of action as we proceed.
Gary Solomon (CEO of PROACT)
As part of our process of working with the board of education and greater community to find the next Superintendent, we’ve outlined a timeline and a process we’ll talk to you briefly about tonight.
Since our last meeting, we have been working with the board of education and the district to identify key members of the community that we can include in our transparent process to select the next superintendent.  We spent the holidays identifying locales, times and loosely based schedules and arenas for public engagement sessions as well as identifying community organizations, groups and individuals we should contact as part of the process.
Last month we presented a  Timeline and it calls for an extensive amount of community engagement.  It calls for a great amount of community engagement in January and February.  Getting involved and setup a liaison group to work with the community, PROACT and the board of education.  Recruiting, marketing, doing a national campaign to recruit local, national and regional candidates.  Ultimately presenting a slate of candidates to the board of education and community for your consideration.  Select the next superintendent in June.
Process for stakeholder engagement.  We spent some time with the board individually today asking key questions and driving guidelines.  Then working with the community we’ll take that information to put together a position profile.
We interviewed the board today and will cull that into a document we can share with the board.  At the next board session we’ll present a very concrete plan of engagement with different individuals, groups, times and locations so everybody can agree it’s an inclusive and transparent process.
Stan Jester – Are you going to bring one plan to be approved or bring back a couple of choices?
Gary Solomon – We’ll bring back to you our recommendation.
Stan Jester – Just one plan?
Gary Solomon – We’ll bring back to you our recommendations for a plan.
Jim McMahan – Given that our next meeting is Feb 3, can we align the stakeholder engagement with the calendar.
Gary Solomon – The critical part of the stakeholder engagement is to make known that we are doing it.  We’ve been working with Ms Tyson and the administration to chart out a regional and strategic plan to get everybody involved.  We are also working on an online survey.
Michael Erwin – Are we going to discuss any part of the draft we had before.
Gary Solomon – Let’s leave that as a discussion document for now.  We would like to incorporate the board feedback and bring everything back at the the next board meeting.