Most names to remain secret
Twenty-one people have applied to be superintendent of the Haines Borough School District, but the public will get to know the identities of only a half dozen of them.
School board president Anne Marie Palmieri said school board members have seen the names and resumes of all candidates who applied by the Jan. 31 deadline, but only names of about six finalists will be made public.
Palmieri said school board members have been able to see the full list of candidates through the website of the Alaska Association of School Boards, the agency the district hired to help it with the superintendent search. But because the applications are owned by AASB, Haines school officials can’t release them.
Those were among contract terms the district agreed to, Palmieri said. “AASB policy is that they don’t belong to us. They’re their property.”
Peggy Cowan, a consultant for AASB, said her agency already has notified candidates that only the names of finalists for the job would be revealed. Confidentiality, she said, allows AASB to get the largest pool of candidates it can. Some candidates may not have notified their employers they were applying for the job, Cowan said.
“It would have a negative effect on the size of the candidate pool to be broadcasting names early in the process,” Cowan said. “It’s a win for the pool. Nationwide, superintendents and principals are at a premium. There’s a small pool of them. We want to get as large a pool as possible (for the Haines job). We don’t want to dis-incentivize candidates from applying.”
The procedure is a change from the district’s previous hiring process and the one at the Haines Borough, where applications of candidates to administrative and department head-level jobs are public documents.
Palmieri was asked how the public was served by keeping the full list of candidates’ names private.
“This is the way AASB runs their search. We think for those candidates who are in Alaska with input from AASB and Rich Carlson, we’ll hear a lot of positives and negatives about people. AASB is doing reference checks. At that point, we’ll be hearing from people all around the state,” Palmieri said.
Palmieri was asked whether she thought sharing the full list of candidates might allow citizens to do their own research and provide independent information about candidates valuable to the hiring process.
“In the past, when we’ve looked for a superintendent and (the newspaper) has published names, I don’t know any time anyone has offered me feedback,” she said.
At a meeting set for Tuesday afternoon, an 11-member committee of staff and community members will review the full list of candidates – with names redacted – “to say yes, no, maybe,” Palmieri said.
Starting at 5 p.m., the board will winnow down that list to 6-8 finalists, whose names will become public. On Wednesday, starting at 11:30 a.m., the board will hold phone or Skype interviews with finalists with a goal of determining three the district would bring to town for personal interviews. The board is hoping to offer a contract to a candidate on Feb. 25.
Members of the superintendent review committee include teachers Sam McPhetres, Patty Brown and Sophia Armstrong, classified staffers Rachelle Galinski, Jen Marschke and Natasha Coleman, administrators Rene Martin and Cheryl Stickler, administrative assistant Ashley Sage, and School Advisory Committee members Pam Long and Nicole Holm.
AASB’s Cowan said 15 of 21 candidates are either living in Alaska or have worked in Alaska schools. The district would prefer to hire a candidate with superintendent experience and has said that a history of success as an administrator is a must, Cowan said.
The district is looking for a candidate whose strengths include budgeting, curriculum development, school technology, special education and public relations, she said.