The Haines Borough school board voted unanimously Monday to extend its search for a new superintendent after hearing that the two candidates that met its criteria for the hire wouldn’t be available until the end of the current school year.
The new application deadline is Jan. 29.
The attempt at filling the position at mid-year was required for keeping interim superintendent Rich Carlson on the job. By virtue of receiving state benefits as a retired superintendent, Carlson is permitted to work only on a temporary basis.
He’s eligible for a full year’s employment if the district is unable to fill the position.
School board members were anticipating a relatively short list of qualified candidates, as they’d been informed by the agency conducting the superintendent search that most working superintendents wouldn’t be able to switch jobs at mid-year.
Timi Tullis of the Alaska Association of School Boards, which is conducting the search, reported telephonically to the board that the job had attracted 12 candidates by the Thanksgiving application deadline, only four of which met the board’s criteria for Alaska superintendent experience.
Tullis said only two of the four met the board’s other criteria for the job, but those two wouldn’t be available for a February hire, as they were currently under contract.
Tullis did not share the applications with school board members, who acted on her recommendation.
Board president Anne Marie Palmieri said she didn’t have a problem with the agency making a determination of candidates’ qualifications without board members seeing the applications.
“I’m comfortable with them making that call. I trust their judgment. We hired AASB and we set out the criteria and (our decision) was based on Timi looking through the applications and her evaluation of them.”
Palmieri said the current applicants can choose to stay in the pool of candidates for the Jan. 29 deadline, when board members will get to see applications.
“People leaving jobs in other districts typically will tell the board in January. That’s a typical time in that cycle. By expanding the application period to the end of January, it will give potential applicants time to think about it over Christmas break and pull together their materials,” Palmieri said.