Board discusses community input in superintendent search

Magdalena’s school board discussed the process for finding a new superintendent at their February meeting.

Kelby Stephens, board member, suggested changes to the job description, including adding specific years of principal and classroom experience.

“The biggest thing is we actually put it out too early, because we didn’t have board approval yet, so we needed that approval before it was put into the paper. So I would like to discuss putting some different things on there that we’re looking for,” Stephens said, “If I had a superintendent come to me and try to tell me what to do in the classroom when they’ve only been in there for five years, they’re not going to get any respect at all,”

Board President Lynn Major said the job description came directly from the National School Board Association. She confirmed that they had 11 applicants already.

“I don’t think it would hurt to add those. If you want to add them. Would it be a big deal?” Major said.

Stetson Herrera, human resources director, said adding and broadening the recommendations wouldn’t be a problem as long as they didn’t “move the goal posts.”

The board voted to add a preferred ten years experience in teaching to their advertisement.

Major reported they had a superintendent search training at the National School Board Association training. She said the recommendations were to advertise for at least four weeks, send out an electronic survey for potential interview questions from the community and ask about their priorities.

“We design our questions with the feedback from the community, from staff,” Major said, “Then compile all the results and comments, and we get all of those, then we can have a work session to review and create the interview questions based on the feedback that we get from the community and staff.”

She said she spoke with Dennis Rosh, a former New Mexico House Representative with experience as a superintendent. He suggested a meet-and-greet and compiling recommendations.

Stephens said he’d prefer a committee with about ten people, including principals, office staff, one representative from each school, a student body president, support staff and two community representatives.

He said they could help reduce the candidate pool and potentially be involved in the final interview process.

“I prefer the committee. I think you’re gonna overflood yourself with too much information, and they’re gonna counteract each other a little bit,” Stephens said.

Brett Brunton, board member, said he was concerned it would get too confusing with so much feedback.

Board members Sharon Harris and Rachel Montoya emphasized the importance of including community and staff input throughout the process to ensure transparency and buy-in.

Major said she spoke with their attorney about the process.

“She highly recommends that we do this, that getting the feedback from the community was a priority. We were elected to do this. So it’s our job, it’s our requirement, to do this,” Major said.

It was suggested that the board combine the two ideas and simplify it.

The board voted unanimously to conduct a community survey to gather input on the qualities and priorities for the next superintendent. They crafted an open-ended survey question asking community members to share what qualities they feel are most important in choosing a new superintendent. They plan to collect responses over the next month and review them at their next meeting on the 17th.