Cedar Rapids school board sets timeline for superintendent search

CEDAR RAPIDS - The Cedar Rapids school board will collect public input over the next few weeks on its search for a new superintendent and will interview candidates March 8 and 10, the board decided Monday.

The board met Monday with Bill Attea, a consultant with the search firm HYA Executive Search, to discuss a timeline for the search. Attea will meet separately with board members, district administrators, teacher leaders, support staff leaders and students on Jan. 28 and 29.

Public forums will be held in the evening on both of those dates, and Attea will hold a separate meeting for any faculty or staff member wishing to attend. HYA Executive Search also will conduct an online survey about criteria for the next superintendent, Attea said.

Attea will present a report based on community input to the board on Feb. 9, and the board will review the slate of candidates on March 6.

The board decided to conduct a confidential search, allowing candidates not to disclose the fact of their application to their current employers. Attea said he will recruit candidates for Cedar Rapids rather than waiting for candidates to apply.

'A focus search is aggressive recruitment rather than advertising and waiting for people to apply,” Attea said. 'That does not preclude anyone from applying.”

Board president Mary Meisterling said the district hopes to have a new superintendent in place by July 1. She said the board will reach out to candidates from the search that resulted in current superintendent David Benson's hiring.

The board will interview three to five total candidates on March 8 and 10. Attea said it usually takes about three weeks after an initial interview for a board to hire a new superintendent.

If the recruitment process does not yield satisfactory candidates, the board will turn to an open search, Meisterling said.

Board vice president Allen Witt said he hoped the new superintendent would stay for 10 years. Benson is in his sixth year; previous superintendent David Markward served for five years.

'This should be a 10-year hire in my mind, or more,” Witt said.

Attea said asking for that type of commitment can scare some candidates off, but he advised the board to look for younger candidates.

Benson announced his retirement last month. He will retire on June 30.Also at the meeting Monday, board members unanimously voted to table a resolution to pay the City of Cedar Rapids $500,000 to help cover the architectural costs of the city's new Northwest Recreation Center.

The additional costs of the project arose after the city decided on Harrison Elementary School as the site for the center and the Federal Emergency Management Agency determined that the school is a historic building. Any addition to the building must therefore match the school's design.

The money would be paid over five years and would come out of the district's physical plant and equipment levy (PPEL) fund. The first payment would be made no later than Jan. 31, 2016.

Benson, who had planned to recommend passing the resolution, changed his mind after community member Lawrence Wenclawski raised concerns about the use of PPEL funds for a new purpose. Voters narrowly passed an increase in the district's PPEL rate in September.

'If this rec center project was on the PPEL list, I would not have supported the public vote,” Wenclawski said. '(PPEL funds) were sold to us for basic repairs, not to cover up unfortunate expenses.”

Benson said he had failed to bring the project before community members on the district's infrastructure projects committee. He said tabling the resolution would allow him to do so.