CR superintendent search is leaving the station

In the midst of the Christmas rush, the Cedar Rapids School Board is kicking off a superintendent search, right this very minute.

Superintendent Dave Benson's retirement was announced on Tuesday. Less than a week later, on Monday at 4 p.m., the board has scheduled a special meeting to lay out its search process. It's moving faster than the Polar Express, at a time when many of us are out wassailing and what not. I'm on vacation this week, and I'm not alone.

So where's the fire? And I'm not talking about a yule log.

It's true the search itself won't start until January. But Monday's call on how the board will proceed is critical. Once a process is set in motion, it can be tough to catch the train. Citizens should have been given more time to consider how they'd like this to unfold.

School Board President Mary Meisterling says she's recommending a process that looks much like the search that brought both Benson and his predecessor, David Markward, to Cedar Rapids. Benson also was a finalist when Markward was hired. Small world.

So the board is likely to hire Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, now HYA Executive Search, a search firm based in Chicagoland. It's the same consultant that guided two previous searches, and Meisterling says HYA's staff is full of former superintendents. HYA also handled Linn-Mar's just completed, largely closed-door, superintendent hunt.

HYA is a division of the ECRA Group, which has a philosophy.

'ECRA is founded on a systemic philosophy and belief that all components of an organization are interdependent. To understand the function and efficacy of the whole organization, one must understand the relationship and interdependence of its parts,” ECRA says on its website. The efficacy of that paragraph relies heavily on its buzzwords.

So consultants. Check.

'What we're going to do on this one is we're going to post it internally,” Meisterling said. 'And then quite honestly my hope is that candidates who've applied in the past, that we were impressed with, may be interested. If those avenues fail, then we'll conduct a national search.”

What about public participation?

Meisterling said the public, staff, school board members and others will be asked at the start about the skills and attributes they'd like to see in the next superintendent. Meisterling would like to hold a town hall-style forum on the district's expectations for a new hire.

She also hopes all finalists for the position will take questions in public forums, as Benson, Markward and Paula Vincent did two searches ago. Six years ago, Benson was the lone top candidate and took another round of public questions before his hiring.

That's good news. Candidate disclosure and public vetting of finalists is absolutely necessary in hiring the leader of Iowa's second-largest school district, not to mention the metro's largest taxing entity.

Consider, for a moment, the major, far-reaching decisions made during Benson's tenure. This is an important job.

'I want it to be as public as possible, provided that a candidate approves that process. Because it's a community. It's a big decision,” Meisterling said.

She said, however, if a candidate doesn't want his or her name released, the board may have to consider curtailing public vetting.

'A lot of consultants would tell you to keep it closed. Our consultant, Hazard Young, told us the last two times to keep it closed. We did not keep it closed,” Meisterling said.

It should never be closed. Fear of public disclosure should be a deal-breaker. Period. Candidates afraid to be named should be told, politely, thanks, but no thanks. Maybe you worry we might miss a good one. I say any candidate who wants to play coy isn't really a good one.

This is a district that's had a transparency problem or two over the last few years. The largely behnd-closed-doors process that led to the closure of Polk Elementary is a prime example. A fully open, public superintendent search would go a long way toward mending some still broken fences.

It's also a pivotal moment for the district. The need for Cedar Rapids, and frankly, every public school district, to reinvigorate and even reinvent its educational product for a changing world is becoming more and more urgent. It's a community school district in the middle of community that's also wrestling with change, and needs its schools to be collaborators and catalysts. It's a district that, despite its vast assets and potential, is losing kids to open enrollment. It needs a shot of energy and enthusiasm.

So the next superintendent needs to be an unconventional, enthusiastic visionary, as well as keeping the budget balanced and the buses running on time. And yet, the board is set to use a process that feels awfully conventional. Former superintendents searching for current superintendents fluent in the efficacy of organizational interdependence. Swell.

Meisterling disagrees that the board is playing it safe.

'If you were to watch the things our board has approved over the last number of years, we are pushing the envelope of tradition. We are looking at innovative programming. We have created innovative programing outside the traditional classroom,” she said.

'We are looking for that energetic, fresh person that will have some tenure in the district that is longer than five or six years. And if we don't see that candidate in this process, we're going to keep on looking until we get it. But we're not settling for a status quo,” Meisterling said.

I have no doubt of her sincerity. But the proof will be in the process, and we should all be allowed to watch closely.

' Comments: (319) 398-8452; todd.dorman@thegazette.com