001call please Mr Cerrone here Miss Doyle here Mr Gatewood president Miss Johnson I see her on the Google meet Mr ploger present Miss similton present Miss Swanson present all right stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay item 2.1 superintendent search firm presentations and we will start with Ray and Associates you'll just introduce yourself please hello Bridget Chaney from Ray and Associates how is everyone tonight wonderful thank you good good so I promise I I am going to be thorough but quick because I know we have a time limit so if at any point that I'm speaking and you feel as though you have a
002question by all means stop me I um don't see any of you so except for Ms Johnson now so if there's anything that you want to do to get my attention just verbally pop in and that'll be just fine I do have a presentation if it's okay that I screen share yes and while you're doing that I would like to have everyone go around and introduce themselves on our board although you can't see us we'll introduce ourselves anyway and then um I I know that you said that we should stop you at any time but if you know we we're we're we've indicated that we've given you a 20-minute time slot and so if that's going to delay you I would prefer that you you go through your presentation and then if we have questions
003we can ask after sure all right Jared would you like to start sir Jared ploger uh Dominic Cerrone Haley Swanson Latonya simultane Eugene Gatewood Jennifer Johnson okay you can start all right thank you and what I will say I don't know what you can see or not because it takes you off the screen when I'm sharing so um what I'm going to do is is share this and then I will exit off the presentation to just have a conversation but I wanted you to have some visual aids in these and so rain Associates and thank you for welcoming Us in tonight appreciate it very much as you know I'm Bridget Chaney and this will be the team I am am part of a team that represents Ray and Associates and would represent you and your
004District should we have the privilege of being selected so Mike Collins is our president and is out of Ohio and Dr Karen Hall is one of our national search Associates she is a former superintendent St Louis Missouri and Kathy schoenfelder is Vice President of the company and she is our home office contact that would be dedicated to your search from the home office perspective and then myself I'm in Michigan and we are are very um Team oriented so you will have access to Kathy Karen myself Mike at any point in time but if it is something that is logistical I guess is is how I usually think about it then Kathy is your person she's wonderful at responding within minutes as we all are but she handles many of our logistical so that's our team
005and I will happily talk about our diversity Equity inclusion and social justice uh statements and and what we'll say is that you know diversity inclusion um equity and social justice are at our core we don't shy away from that we represent and have placed more women and superintendents of color than any other firm and we're proud of that we think that that um oftentimes students staff and communities love to see themselves represented in the leader so we work very hard and diligently to make sure that we have a very diverse candidate pool that that we can bring to each and every search and our strong commitment of course to social justice and so the next slide I want to talk with you about is your input on the search because I know that's always something
006really important to boards and we want to honor that um as robustly as possible because it's your search you know your community better than we do better than anybody else because you live and breathe uh your school district and community so is the board is involved in several different ways and the first way that the board is involved is one-on-one interviews with us your your search team members because we want to hear from you what are the strengths of the district what are some areas that you'd love to see filled in by your next leader what are some of the things that you think are attributes of the next leader that you need to have in this up and coming new leader of yours and so we ask questions of you individually and confidentially so
007we can begin to put other some themes for you so we asked you those questions and then we'll also hold Community forums or stakeholder groups and ask those same questions so that you can see how do how do you view that and and in comparison to what your community what your staff what your students view those questions at so we give you a good amount of data on that both quantitative mail qualitative but so you're involved in that um you are the main driver in determining what your candidate profile ends up to be and you are also in absolute charge of the timeline so you tell us when would you like to meet how long would you like the application when to be we will give you our best thinking you all of the things
008um that we think will lead to a successful search and ultimately you get to select that you also uh throughout the process are kept so informed we're highly transparent we want you to know every step of the way because the same as we don't want any surprises we also do not want you to have any so you also set the candidate um compensation so what is that window of salary that you'd like to put out and publicize for us to recruit against and you conduct the interviews of course so you are intricately involved in in that piece of it because this absolutely is your pick your job you hire and evaluate the the superintendent that you selected so you must be an initial part of that the other thing that you'll do is you will
009select the advertising venues that you want this to go into what where do you want this to be advertised and we have several choices one thing that does come with our base price is um an ed week ad so we automatically place uh your superintendent candidacy profile and open position in edweek and the other venues are absolutely up to you it's usually right around 15 12 to 1500 if the the common package is selected and that would be nasty um so um for black Educators or black superintendents um Alice which is for Latino superintendents um so those are the type of venues that oftentimes uh people would like to advertise at so you tell us that it automatically goes on our website automatically goes out to every one of our Associates Across the Nation and
010so they make their um they make their contacts as well so that is the involvement of the board absolutely all the way through we are with you every step of the way we will help you in any manner if we will set forth all of your choices to guide you to the best decision that fits your community your school district and as I tried the next slide um that I want to share with you is just an overview and this process overview is where I'll hit probably likely many of the questions that that you either have or the ones that you post to and we will we will conduct as I spoke about the the um stakeholder forums or Community forums we will conduct those in any language we also have a survey that we
011send out to any and everybody um actually we asked you to send it out but we we um compile it and we will have it translated into any language that you'd like us to and it asks people for what are the top characteristics that they want to see in the next superintendent and it has it asks them to rank order their top 10 out of 31. so you get quantitative data from that to also compare with the qualitative data that comes in from the forums and the groups things like that so you have like I say lots of data to work from When developing your your candidate profile we are the oldest firm in the business uh we have the most searches completed over 1600 now we do have a tremendous candidates we have over
01228 000 unique hits to our website each month we also have like I said scores of of experienced Associates Across the Nation and we are all very diverse in our backgrounds educational board members um and I'll say could be current could be former um so educational type of positions whether that is central office it could be former superintendents um it could be current sitting super incentives in some cases not in this case with you um but in some cases and we also have people from the business sector that have elected to join our firm as well because we'll talk about hybrid candidates in a moment and like I say some some board members who've been on on your team right and and sat in your seat and so that gives us a very well-rounded team
013and a lot of diversity inside so there is comprehensive support from our Associates I talked about that piece of it as far as the engagement not only of you but of your your staff members your student parents community members member business partners you do have access to Kathy who's full-time in the office staff she will also visit you on site should she need to um Karen and I are also available to to come to your district for stakeholder groups we can provide hybrids so we can do offerings that allow for people to sit back in the comfort of their home and offer us feedback to provide to you or out out um in face-to-face public so we can do either and a lot of times people do like the hybrid piece of it so when
014we think about um the methods that are used to check the credentials as we go through this process and um the application period is open and then comes to a close however many candidates applied completed an application and we're seeing that range anywhere from 25 to 40. uh right now depending upon the school district and we comb through every single one of the completed applications and what we do is we overlay the the candidates background experience and and all of the things that they list on their resume letters of references and all of that to your candidate profile that you helped us develop that your stakeholders helped us develop um so we can see best it's extremely important to us that's when people stay in the superintendency we know that um the longest standing superintendent's
015day because it's the very best fit for them and for the district so we we love that piece of it we are always looking for best fits so we vet these candidates like I say against your candidate profile we come up with only 10 to 12 that we think are best fit for you and represents to you and when we present them to you you will see during three to four questions that are not not given to them ahead of time and we do that because it's like for you to be able to get a picture of them before you even go into a neighbor um who are they a little bit how do they interact um with the camera how do they speak half of their heads in a way that is um very
016logical and from the heart and it kind of gives you a good view into who they are and then we also ask Ed them a few specific District questions that that popped up in your scenes as far as what we learned in the stakeholder groups and from you and we have those questions they respond we we tell you all those answers we asked references former District or that former employer and things like that so we search out people to speak with that they haven't given us we we always ask their permission uh there isn't anyone who said no and we go far and wide with that we also conduct an internet search so we're searching for anything that may pop up with their name in it um because we know how how easy it is
017to do that these days and again we don't want any surprises for you so we conducted that robust background check um prior to bringing you the extended to 12 candidates and then what you do from the 10 to 12 is we facilitate um a discussion and we have a forced prioritization Matrix that allows you to narrow it down to the number that you want to interview it might be five it might be seven but if we're in there for first round interviews though it can be conducted in person or online um via Zoom or teams whatever works best for you and uh from there that'll be your first round we'll help you develop questions and walk you through that and then we will have you interview and from there you develop who you'd like to
018see second round for the final interviews and to select your candidate and in that process for your finalists we uh conduct an in-depth background check so what that is is everything except in FBI background check it is financials it is driving records um it is any type of criminal or civil litigation it is all of those things and you get that information uh prior to any type of contract Association um or selection that comes with your finalists uh your your second round interviews and so what we want to always make sure is that you are comfortable with any of the people that you move forward knowing that they are a clean slate ready to come to you um in a manner that you're ready to receive right so whole and and ready to lead and
019being bold and the other thing that I would say is the guarantee that's an important thing so we do guarantee a couple things first of all we will come back and and ask your Super Friends or a five years at least if they would like to um interview somewhere else are you aware of such and such um that may be in your hometown or whatever the case may be we do not come back and tap anyone on the shoulder for five years that's a guarantee that we have and then we have a two-year guarantee and the two-year guarantee is that if for some reason the Supreme does not work out we will come back and conduct that search for free so limitations on that are helped anything that was that was unrealized and could be
020a a health issue that that requires them to step away from and or debt so it could be either of those that has not happened often to us at all in the past but once in a while it can occur and we want you well covered because we know how important it is so let's see I have your questions here and I want to make sure that I've I've um touched upon them okay strategy for recruiting and the pools where we Source our candidates so Associates Across the Nation have this tremendous um robust amount of of people that they took in education and out of Education because often we see hybrid candidates these days uh that are being highly successful it might be somebody who's in the military or it might be somebody who was
021an executive of a private firm but was engaged in in things that led cells to leadership and education so anybody who who comes along that way we absolutely vet we absolutely overlay them against your profile and and um bring them forward if they're a viable option for you so we do we do recruit through our Associates we also recruit through about 28 000 hits we have over 3 200 that are on our database that are actively seeking employment that we have a continual relationship with one of the distinctions we have um that can sometimes set us apart from others is we don't have a pool each season or for a couple of Seasons where this is the group of folks that went through you know a superintendent Academy say and we're trying to find each
022of them a job and this and the pool that we go from search to search to search with each each search is unique it's different um there are nuances to it and so our pool varies Across the Nation and across each search um so it is not a closed pool search it is very very deep and um we reach a lot of people through not only the ads but our own interactions with them with people that we know or networking that we've been in we are at Double ASA and things like that so our network is is very very wide and and that's how we do that so um we are not exclusive to the elementary and secondary sector we are wide and when recruiting candidate and I'm proud of that because it goes to
023the diversity that I spoke about very early on uh we do not conduct formality um uh quizzes or or uh thing like that we have found that when matched with the candidate profile it has been very much a best fit type of scenario and that works very very well has worked for us in the past and um seems to be very very productive for districts as well so I would also like to talk about um what we what we've presented today what I presented today certainly can be tailored to what you need time in which you also while I can say we have our um I'll take phone calls they can certainly be modified at any point in time just trying to fit the place in which your district is so we'd love to partner
024with you we absolutely appreciate the time today welcome any questions um I think one of the other things that sets us apart we are woman owned and um and we have a higher than average percentage of diverse and women um Associates so we're very proud of that and so with that I think what I'll do is if any of the questions that you have I'm close to that 20 minutes and wanted to make sure to honor your so Bridget just one question um have you I want to give you four more minutes because we started four four minutes late but I just want to make sure you feel like you've touched on all of the questions that we presented to you well let me look just to make a hundred percent sure and I don't
025know let me see I'm looking for something still sharing I'm sorry you go ahead I just I was on I was under the impression that we didn't give you 20 minutes but we did so oh if you're if you've looked at all the questions Jeremy hold on hold on hold on a minute Jen just a second um do you want did you want to start out with a question I just have one simple quick question yeah go ahead um Bridget are you aware that we would some of us on the board I I pull um would like to make sure that our new board when they come in in April beginning of may have a chance to be a part of this process do are you prepared to be able to bring them those new
026members I'm sorry absolutely yes we worked in another District I I was part of the search team as well that had quite a board turnover um during their search so uh very very Adept at that and what I'll say thanks for asking the question because that can be tumultuous for people because this is a big deal very smooth they want them to have their voices absolutely thank you Jen yes thanks for that question okay we're going to start this way Eugene do you have a question uh no I think she answered everything that I wrote down okay make sure we're doing two minutes if we need to okay um do you have a question I could come up with one no you don't have to um Ellie Swanson here I don't know if you can
027see me so you talked about um tumultuous times so we have a very tumultuous online presence right which um you know has some accurate inaccurate uh kind of all over the place so I guess a concern for me is how would you represent our district in light of I guess what am I looking to say like I I want the night of the situation I want the best right I want the best light forward like I realize that most people can can read some of it and know you know kind of what's true and kind of what's not but clearly we have a very divided community on many things so I guess what's your experience with that well guide me if I if I don't fully answer this I'm going to do my best based
028upon what I what I heard and understand stand and um what I'll say first is we do our best um in the stakeholder group meetings and things like that learn your community learn the things that are hot button items learn the things that are that are happening um right now we're just finishing a search in a district that has an ongoing lawsuit and um what we do is we make sure that candidates are very well versed in the things that that we learned that we know are true through conversations with you the stakeholder group s that are lifted up as as your truth and so our personal approach first of all works very well but then um I wanna I want to address a little bit the engagement with folks because sometimes uh that can
029be like you say tumultuous right if you're in a stakeholder groups meeting and something comes up and the Beautiful Thing is we are trained facilitators we do our very best uh and we're pretty good at any type of thing that comes up that we can de-escalate but we always want to represent you like you said in the best light so we can do that best when we immerse ourselves into your District learn you learn your students and um and all the things that surround you so we can we can speak truth about who you are and and what you're about where you're headed can I actually piggyback that question sure um do you have experience where because I'll be honest with you um since you brought it up do you have experience where those of
030us in education were fully aware um where you might actually be advising us that being in a situation uh where those of us in education we're fully aware that our situation is is garnering State recognition are you have you been in a situation where you have gone to a district and advised them listen we are having trouble getting quality candidates or getting candidates that are fitting you and it's because of your situation have you been in that situation would you be uh in a situation where you advise a district you might want to hold off we'll work with you in those scenarios [Music] a very situation and what we asked the board to do is allow for us to walk them through they didn't have anybody internally that they want they want to put out
031as an interim and so we said let us help you place an interim and you know we will do that your interim can stay for about a year and then we'll walk you through this search again and in the meantime what will happen is um some things will die down a little bit hopefully and um we can also be in your District a little bit longer to be able to buff out anything that might be even undertones that that are hard to find in the first two three something like that like that so we have been in that situation and uh turned out successfully um successful which is if if right and if you're not you're not my best candid ate for you at the time at the time so we're happy we do have
032time for one more if if Dominic does not have one Lori go ahead Laura okay um so I'm wondering you've given us a lot of options that we could have so my question is what is included in the base price that we were quoted and what is additional I know you said that we would include one week ad in Ed week everything else is additional what other things are included that you've mentioned that would be additional what things are additional costs so um travel to your district is also billed to you at at a cost per cost so if I if I drove to your District um then you would reimburse mileage and um meal the great thing is I don't eat much so so that's a way to help but um no I somewhat
033of a joke but um so any type of travel for associates to you and we do try our best to make sure that we keep it um as minimum as possible while also making sure that we're there as much as we need to be so we don't expect that that'll go over anything more than I think 4 200 actually is the number that's in here I would guess because I'm not too terribly far and and Karen is not too terribly far that 4 200 would be on the high end I would guess something more along the lines of 2 to 2500 so that is an additional and um the advertising that we saw of acne comes in the price but then anywhere from 12 to 1500 depending upon which other venues you want to add
034advertise in size and expenses for when you bring them in in person if you choose to reimburse them that is a choice that you make you can can elect not to many districts elect two reimburse their travel when they come interview and again that's a minimal cost um you know whether it's driving or airfare to get to you and we'll reimbursement so other than that everything else is in Christ um I do know that that there's a cap on it of thirty one thousand dollars yeah so does that include I I I don't feel like I got an answer you'd you'd recommended or suggested in one that you could do things like get an interim candidate in um that would come at an additional cost if we chose to go with an interim candidate placement
035through you and then a superintendent candidate that would be additional correct so yes the what would happen is that would likely be an additional um nominal fee if you did an interim and because I didn't I didn't know it you know that a route that you would go you would go price quoted um but the search would still stand on its own so let's say one year let's say you put an intern if um I don't know for one year and then you wanted to have to search we would still honor this price it would just be the nominal fee of of putting an interim in for you thank you very much I appreciate that I'll just shoot that back over to you thank you um we've got we got it we got it yeah
036okay yeah all right so um I'd like to thank you for presenting to us today this evening yeah and um we will have deliberations and we'll be in touch wonderful thank you for your time tonight I appreciate it and good luck with good luck with your selection thank you thank you thank you okay you guys you all have a rubric in front of you everybody got their rubric yeah so yeah um you can um review it and then start to while it's still fresh in your mind document what you like does anyone want to communicate out their thoughts or I'm going to give you a couple minutes and then I'd like to have a discussion I thought we were going through each one and doing the rubric and then discussing as a whole at the
037end well we will do that but we have allocated anywhere between 10 and 15 minutes because we went a little long on this one about 10 minutes to have some type of discussion prior to our next um presenters coming in so if we if we could be you know with our time if we're judicious with our time we can have some discussion if we'd like because once this is over we're not going to have a considerable amount of time to discuss after we can take as much time as we need though can we yeah because we're not going to actually you know your vote's coming next week or but if you all want to have discussion if you want us to hear something about your thoughts you know concerning the candidate you're you're more than
038welcome to do that because we can have some discussion at our board meeting as well foreign it's hard for me to to be able to fill this out in its entirety without having some time well no not time having a an understanding of if these are the only three we're going to look at um for me you know I might call something a one but out of the three of them it might be the two out of the one I guess so you can't I I don't need more time relativity relativity one is questions addressed that should be addressed during the presentation and one is questions we should be asking which we did not if they were not addressed in the presentation so these questions not address the presentation we had been told we would
039be asking after and we did not in this case so but it's the same side it is not there are a lot of words right I kind of want to see a mom before I answer these questions you want to see them all before you answer yeah kind of yeah okay I'm going to make adjustments yeah I I have an idea but yeah just myself I'm content to go forward caramel M M's those are one of the those are my my friends don't take my candy no that was not authorized no yeah okay I love you so bad it's good okay oh you look at you with your pencils these things coolest oh okay checked every time they said something oh I like that this is as they're talking I'm looking at this rubric and
040so what I'm doing is I every time they mention something within one of these categories that I like I'm just giving it a tally marks but every time something is said that I don't just remind me later when I'm doing my but it's just a way for me to remember uh points for or against in each area thank you for that idea yeah are we ready for the next one yeah I think so yeah we can get the next one oh yeah yeah and I feel like some of these keywords should have been in the questions yeah I didn't make the rubric until later so right you know what I mean it was hard for me to judge him on a rubric where they didn't where they well I don't know that they should know
041what we're judging tomorrow you know what I mean yeah when I realized I needed a rubric I asked yeah I did too that was kind of weird I was like yeah I found one but that that really was kind of hello good evening oh yeah yeah right so yeah I had to look for quite a while yeah right no I said the same thing and then I squinted you're warmer shaking hands I understand I understand so you asked the goal so yeah we would love for you to introduce yourself and then we're going to introduce ourselves to you where should I point I'm getting back to the beginning here um so we'd like to introduce ourselves to you and um I think kind of run through quickly some slides takes about 10 minutes answer any
042questions you might have just to get just to give a chance to get a chance to get to know us a little bit and for us to get to know you a little bit I'm going to let my service in Illinois third year to work it with three years now uh just done two or three searches already on partnership with some really strong leaders in the organization the other piece I would say is that I'm uh I'm a leader who has not who's nationally been known for our work for prioritizing Equity diversity inclusion and belonging in Evanston you know that's a community where that's what we live by but nationally most recently and what has been happening it's been critical that we bring that to life the conversations about Equity is one thing but how
043do you make it live in a lift it where it's actually actionable is that all students regardless of the race gender or any of those things are regardless of whatever happens there so things that we've done in our district that I've been paying attention to what you all are doing here symposiums where we bring in presents from across the state in the country to come in and do work to help support our our Educators our custodians our parent professionals our bus drivers so they can understand the Dynamics of what uh belonging and diversity really means it's not this bad word sometimes uh it gets it gets tagged as it's actually a reality so um just wanted to thank you all for bringing us an opportunity for having the opportunity command and present to you all
044tonight my name is Kevin O'Meara I retired in 2017 I was a superintendent for nine years Argo Community High School in the southwest suburbs I was a principal for seven years before that the High School Math teachers dean of students after I retired I became a full-time associate professor in the department of leadership at Concordia University in River Forest those who wish to become superintendents and principals and get their doctorates at the same time one thing that Devon of course failed to mention is that he is just recently received a very very prestigious award he's the national superintendent of the year for the nabsy which is the National Alliance and black school Educators he is a leader in his field and our firm is half owned by me and half owned by my partner Dr
045David Negron first generation Mexican-American we're the only firm that's that's minority owned more than half of our Consultants are either black or brown or minority or women or both so we have a very diverse approach to making sure that we present a slate to this board that's diverse that's qualified that meets the needs of of your community um I've done over 60 searches in my career as a superintendent search person um FYI my sister Patricio Mira I don't know you heard the name before and I died a couple years ago was a teacher here for over 20 years and our teacher she loved it here we used to sit on her patio about a mile from here and and she allowed me to get to know this community it's a great Community you deserve a
046tenant we're willing to take on that role and offer the chance so I'm going to run through the slideshow here real quick we can we can talk some more so we were we were established about 20 years ago in 2004 we've done over 600 successful superintendent searches we have about 70 now Consultants throughout the United States mostly in the Midwest all kinds of contacts and networking approaches to the way we do business about a third of our Associates including Devon our active superintendents and then that stretch far and wide which is a suburb of St Louis it's 175 square miles 37 schools almost 30 000 students I was able to recruit Dr Curtis Kane Dr Curtis Kane is the national superintendent of the year for aasa which is the largest organization in the nation he
047came we're good at recruiting we we want to make sure we do well by the the board and the community that we serve um every search that we've ever ever done you're welcome to check these references we've given you but any more that you want we're happy to provide that we've completed those on time and within budget we have a verified excuse me 97 success rate the metric we use for that is that ninety percent of the people that we place as superintendents receive a second contract offer from their Boards of education and that's really really tough to do especially in this day and age when boards perhaps turn over when so tough from a political standpoint perhaps and our success rate has only gone up since we took over the firm about four years
048ago my own personal success rate is 100 every single person that I've ever placed with a board of education has received a second contract offer um we were strong as I mentioned a strong list of references from from school districts we've done business with um you've got some in your proposal but we're happy to provide you any more that you like Savannah can you kind of go through the search plan absolutely so there are four phases to the search process for us phase of course is holding the search right uh that's once those once just start from a selected we select it uh we want to start our process like steps that we'll do we'll do anything with you all and also candidates but there's a there's a lot to go into that you want
049the community piece that we reach out to give feedback and understanding so that we can help you really design and build a quality uh superintendent search profile you can create a profile right which is Facebook and then we developed a candidate pool right so we want interest right but not everyone was interested we'll have the desirable skills or talents that you're looking for to lead your district and that happens at an AC and then the select the state of candidates that process is uh what Kevin and I and other members of our team will take a significant amount of time to to interview and talk to you individuals who are interested and then those individuals will make this will make a decision to send a slate of about 10 to 12 to you all where
050you'll have an opportunity to look at those applicants and then make a decision on who you would like to bring in for the actual interview you were the only firm that guarantees face-to-face interviews even during covet we do a slate of 20 to 25 people that we interview and bring forward typically a slate of semi-finalists for the board to consider about five to seven candidates you would interview them and decide perhaps which three you'd like to move into the finalist stage we'll talk about that at the plan I mean you get the outset it's a very detailed process all these decisions are yours to make we have suggestions we know that our process works but these decisions are yours to make I'm clicking too fast I'm sorry so our search process is we advertise locally
051and nationally there are some advertising options that we will discuss with you at the planning meeting those are your to make frankly our best way to get candidates to apply for these positions is through our networking again about a third of our of our constituent of our colleagues here are active superintendents the other two thirds have been doing this for for many years we've got lots of contacts out there we engage your community when we create the profile we will do a series of focus groups usually eight to ten to twelve people for focus groups identified by the Board of Education the first and foremost one would be with the Board of Education in a closed session we would have a conversation about the trades as as Divine has mentioned and characteristics and characteristics and
052experiences you're looking for your next superintendent but we would do focus groups with the teachers with the admin team with the community members with elected officials with uh staff members with students that's my most fun one I always like sitting down with students and hearing what they'd like to have in their next leader we also offer two open forums so that if community members and parents want to come to an open forum and share their ideas they're welcome to do so we would ask some key questions and have them respond to those questions the other open Forum we would recommend would to be a staff open form typically after school usually around 3 30 or 4 o'clock where staff and teachers and admin who are not part of the focus groups can share their share
053their ideas with this the other key feature is that we design a proprietary customized survey for our you to roll out on your website and advertise through social media and newsletters or whatever else that you choose to use is usually open for about two weeks again it's proprietary it really gets to to what people want in their next superintendent take all that information we boil it down present that profile to you and that usually takes about 30 days we addressed the recruit and attract talent I talked about Curtis Kane but we've got many many other stories to tell you about successful candidates in their current roles we screen and conduct interviews for people that we feel best match the profile that's the lens by which we you candidates who might be good fits for us
054we we will present that slate of candidates to you facilitate training and interviews for the Board of Education especially if not gone through it before we have an interview workshop with the Board of Education give you some sample questions that you may want to consider to ask candidates but that's completely up to you be thoroughly screen candidates and support the hire in other words after the person is placed we do mentoring and tight here for that candidate to make sure that they're that they're they're doing a good job and meeting the poor goals that have been established and we provide guarantees in the search process which will feature in the later slide all right our guarantees which is really critical if you want quality candidates any events and personalized accountancy this is not produced as
055a candidate from the board educational wishes to hire we will continue to bring Canada support with a candidates for an actual expenses only the second piece the superintendent design is dismissed for any reasons within the first 24 months Celsius we will conduct a new search for you we know that for no additional fees the board will pay only the actual expense of the search they're going to ask someone will not recruit this is really critical you're a new superintendent um or or for the duration of his or her first two contracts so we won't touch that person for typically you know you know six to eight years after they're placed here so the person you select is the person that you'll be able to retain is from our perspective we want that person to be
056here um so our class the consulting fee is twenty one thousand five hundred our expenses won't go over 1800 likely to be much less than that we're both local so it's really just basically mileage from our homes to get here um advertising we were talking about some advertising options um with the board of the planning meeting some have better value than others and we'll talk about the various options that we would present to you and lastly for the finalists the one single person you'd like to offer a position to we would recommend that you do a criminal and social media and school background check pay to make sure they don't have an outstanding harass that we're not aware of especially in States other than Illinois that they went to school and got the degree that
057they say that they did on their resume and their application and that there are no outline issues with their social media posts some firms don't do that and they've gotten themselves in trouble with their boards we want to make sure that the person we present is the person that you thought that we would present for both timeline of course we're here right it's the first of our February um profile that's of course with these interviews and yeah focus groups and surveys that we'll send out uh Marshall started select candidates that will come to that'll come to the board for you to go to the process and then in April the time I would be for for you to make the selection of course this is all based off the boards this timeline is the one
058that wouldn't follow we can flow with that or if you would like to make it longer or whatever it may be we can make the adjustments important to what you want to design these are suggestions these are your decisions to make collaborate we'd like to take any questions you might have for us at this time so I love how what questions we already presented and I think we should ask those again so let me just do you have any questions for right now I have one question uh click to follow up to the when you're explaining your cost structure when it when it comes to the advertisement it said to be determined how often or likely is it that we would have to spend additional dollars to find a candidate and to tap into those
059advising advertising dollars and what's the typical cost when they went there are lots of options there's LinkedIn indeed options that are more for the standard Workforce kinds of Endeavors the one that perhaps we'd like you to consider is the Ed week advertising ad week is the National Journal for people in the administrative roles and and seeking positions it used to be that you get that week once a week in your mailbox and look at it in the back there'd be some some listings that doesn't happen anymore we have a partnership with Ed week in the aasa so that they would run those advertisings for us the advertising for Ed week I think is 750 and that's an email blast to all 6 500 of their members so it's well worth the money of the ones
060that we'll present to you that's the one really the only one that we would recommend that you go forward with that's the one that brings the best bang for the buck thank you okay so I'm gonna go to the phone one of our board members is on the phone her name is Jennifer Johnson Jennifer do you have a question yes as a matter of fact thank you for um presenting tonight we appreciate it um we definitely I think um the board would like to consider um maybe extending the timeline a little as we do of an election um that has started we'll start in February and um the primary is in April and we would like to get the input from the four new members so I'm grateful that that is a flexible um line
061I do um have a question you had mentioned um Dr ermara that you had uh your sister I believe that was in the community do either one of you have any Community connections either to our village our school district our um fire department or any other of the governmental bodies that surround us or family members living in the Oswego School District um I my three my sister died on Christmas eve two years ago her three children who all went to Oswego schools from start to finish still live in the community both both my nephews and my one niece Kelly so that's the only connection that I have personally I don't have any connections with any of the other government agencies and I do any connections thank you Jennifer um if we could all speak into
062our microphones Jennifer's having a hard time hearing us all right um next Ally so I'm gonna I'm gonna ask my question again if you're familiar with our community our online presence can be pretty tumultuous especially the Facebook so um how do you present our district in the best light and get us a candidate that kind of can blend I was trying to figure out a better way to word that how do you deal with that yeah say that one more time eating views yeah um okay we we are used to that we've done I think 78 searches since the beginning of covet some of them in very tumultuous tumultuous situations probably didn't say that word very well um bad situations where you'd have police cordon off the the board meeting and and we've been tossing
063people out and so forth we always make sure that candidates know that there are perhaps some um some issues that need to be addressed we've done a lot of research on your four pillars of your of your strategic plan and so forth engage in the community I know is something that that probably could be strengthened here at Oswego the connection between the board and the schools and the community for me I don't think that's a challenge I think that's an opportunity about what your thoughts yeah sitting superintendent um very familiar right so this is when I'm interviewing we do look for people who have experience working in communities that are similar they may have some of the divisive issues that exist in almost every Community now it's almost uh to some degree when reading the
064profile and looking at Oswego um you're looking for someone who may have some experience sitting in that seat so we we will also look at individuals who maybe step into some challenging situations but absolutely our interview process will pick that up through our structure and know who's ready for something this could be so fire it's okay if I keep it consistent and think about yeah if if those of us in education we know that our election is garnering State attention at this point here and so I'm curious if you get to a point where you are having um an issue putting forth what you think is good faith uh candidates will you come to us and say Hey listen we think we need to move this timeline because we are having people who are having
065trepidation will you approach us and say we think we need to adjust this for you for your sake absolutely and have you had to do that ever yeah a suburb not too far away from Milwaukee about the same distance you are from Chicago very divisive the board flipped they have a different election cycle than you do right now um and we had to reopen because the board shifted and the needs of the districts shifted which is fine so there were some disappointed candidates that that we could not bring forward anymore but the person they finally selected is someone that they're all in love with the parents the community the students especially in the board of education so yes we are I think good at adapting our strategy and our timeline to meet the changing needs
066of the district since mine was kind of already answered I'm going to take the liberty of asking a different question you'd mentioned that you had placed the aasa superintendent of the year uh was his asking price within the asking price of the the district another way to put that is if we give you parameters or how often do you find you need to bring us candidates that exceed our parameters for uh annuities salary for compensation um never and if you say you know your ceiling is X dollars we are very clear one is to take care of the community and the board the second is to take care of the candidates themselves so we take very good care of our candidates and a third and most important stick care to take care of the students
067so those three credos are something that we live by we don't do this to make a lot of money most of our candidates aren't in it to make a lot of money and yes I know there are some superintendents that make a lot of money uh across the United States but if you say your ceiling is X we simply will let that the candidates know that that's your ceiling and if you're not interested any longer because that ceiling doesn't match your existing salary and compensation package then we simply won't bring them forward what I would encourage you to do is have a conversation with us about those issues before you make that decision thank you okay um Dominic would you like to ask a question oh okay go ahead Jen you're ready Jen had a
068question so sure well and I have a statement too and I just want to thank you both because one of the things you know my my colleagues have said about being in a tumultuous situation there are parents that feel a little bit marginalized um their voice feeling a little bit marginalized because maybe they are in the minority and so what we where we've been and one of the one of the things that you shared was brilliant it's an opportunity for us to create some new Bridges so I'm I look forward to having candidates that can and and make that we are representing all of the parents and um students in the community so I'm grateful for that so as you know we really appreciate a flexible schedule um because we do want to bring in
069the voice of whoever our new board members might be where are you with um let's say we don't have a candidate and I know you touched on this a little bit but with bringing in an interim for us and stabilizing the environment um for our students and our staff until we can bring in another round of potential candidates if we're not happy with who has been chosen not on your part but just in general don't fit our profile if the board chooses to go the interim routes we will do that for free as long as we are with a signed letter of agreement that we will do your your full search when that when that time comes perhaps in the fall having said that we will talk about these things during the planning meeting of
070course but having said that there's a nationwide teaching shortage and you may have felt that here at the board level I know the students the teachers and staff have felt that across the United States but also in 308 which I explained um there is a nationwide superintendent shortage as well now I just finished last week the search for Gurney School District 56 Up by Wisconsin there where the roller coasters are that I'm scared of um and we were able to attract 38 people to apply for that position one of our competitors I know one that you'll you'll meet tonight at 11 for the district next door now is 38 bed at 11 who knows they got perhaps the person they wanted certainly Gurney got the person they wanted but we're good at attracting candidates even
071under those kinds of difficult circumstances thank you I would avoid an interim unless it's unless it's necessary only because the pool is getting shallower we would like to avoid that as well because we would like to refer staff and community and students but we also want to give ourselves every opportunity to put the right person and start to heal our community um yes we can because we know that it will affect student outcome positively affect student outcomes absolutely understand form if an entertainment interim is what you want we'll do we'll do that for free thank you all right yeah you actually uh touched on this the question I was going to ask um you said uh the superintendent pool is getting thin so is that due to timing or is that due to just the
072overall demand what what and Supply what is can you yeah just go further there's a couple of things but if you ask a sane person who is perhaps now an assistant superintendent somewhere would you like to be a superintendent after that person saw their superintendent getting beat up for the last three years that that kind of deflates people sometimes other people meet maybe would see it as an opportunity so you have to find the right fit but that pool has shrunk so you used to get 50 people six seven years ago I used to get 50 60 people to apply for position like this that's why that doesn't happen anymore just like teacher you know the teacher pool has been so in in six months you expect that pool to improve or remain constant I
073I guess I I want to understand calendar wise you know is there an issue I don't think it's shrinking is dramatically is perhaps I I led you to believe and I apologize for that we'll get you the person you're looking for that's the bottom line but the longer you wait I will say there's an Associated risk with that okay so I had a question so regarding um the type of candidate that you recruit are you fishing only in the elementary secondary education sector where most individuals are superintendents or have their well they obviously have to have their credentials and licensures and all that but do you swim in other pools to find candidates yeah we have attracted a wide range of non-traditional candidates as a matter of fact the one that we just I did
074about three years ago in 205 they were open to and wanted to see some non-traditional candidates two of the five finalists were presented had no school experience whatsoever depends on the profile that we developed after conversations with the board and the profile in the the focus groups and the survey responses that we discussed earlier that's the window that's the lens that's that's the the eyepiece that we look through to make sure that we get the person that you're looking for and that person's background and really it's really important while we are at Midwest heavy in our in our searches we get candidates from across the country Hanoi Vietnam apply for Gurnee he was at the he was the director of the American schools we get the word out we're good at getting the word out
075so um do you find have a more challenging or difficult time acclimating as a you know with all the laws and stuff regarding States and what superintendents have to know typically no I mean I I would say that um the one I just recently did about three years ago in Barrington we recruited uh someone from Columbus Ohio um he thought Illinois was a gold mine compared to the laws they have in Ohio so I guess it kind of depends on where you're coming from now if they're coming from Broward County let's say Florida and Santos is telling all the teachers what the curriculum should be and what the books on the Shelf should be that that they would love to come to Oswego okay all righty well we're about three or four minutes away from
076the question yes you may please do please what is your timeline well I'm I'm going to jump in here and say one thing which is we have an election April 4th it has uh if you talk to like I said if you talk to anyone in education they're full like you're smiling because yes people in administration are fully aware of this right uh any I will not support I can't speak for my other board members but I will not support any decision being made because I don't think that's fair to the person that you bring forward to us they need to be able to work with whoever is sitting up here um I'm very leery about moving two um forward with the process hold on I'm just no you go ahead okay I think I
077think he was asking the other question which is what when are you going to make a decision about who we select for ourselves is that is that what you're asking yeah that's my question then I'm gonna let you answer that I will tell you right that was a poorly water question I apologize I apologize you answered that question but I um in terms of our decision we have a board meeting on is it Monday yes that decision will be will be made that day I'm going to throw out another little option that I've done with other boards in these circumstances considered or not up to you um if there is a slave of candidates who have filed for the board already and are up for election it is not unheard of to involve them in
078closed session meetings in planning sessions under these circumstances that is a doable thing and I've done it several times that's great to know thank you because if we did have a candidate that we really wanted to get on contract it could be very helpful to know that so that we could feel comfortable making a decision if it fit prior to them a candidate and whoever is elected to serve on your boat I actually think that that's a great idea for the planning process even as we're talking about you know some of these decisions early early on um at the very least it's another focus group there's no downside to that I agree we've done it several times very good okay um anyone else thank you so much for your time pleasure meeting you hope to
079hear from you soon and if you need anything you've got my number you've got the number I take texts like all my wife gets mad at me sometimes because I answer the phone at midnight but I think we're all in the same bucket thank you very much it's a pleasure thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you very much thank you take care thanks I would never use it I won't leave the classroom okay did you guys find the hash marks to be a better way to do this I have my masters plus 45 I just remembered yes okay 6 . so but um now I'm going to go back and do my hash marks for the first one you know what I'm gonna go fix it well because the first
080the second one was great for the hash marks I loved it isn't it yeah yeah it's great yep but I'm gonna go back and do the same thing for the first one I'm gonna go back to my house until our next one so can I can I can I ask a question so regarding like um the uh the candidates our current candidates so which candidates the candidates oh no school board candidates like having a um a focus group just for them I'm just I'm just asking a question like is that I meeting or or my only question was did he say in a closed session yes he did well I welcome him I didn't do anything closed session I meant just like a focus group where they bring them in just like they would definitely
081community members whether they're parents or students I think he said closed session I think we should do it again yeah oh for sure um I'm I'm in favor of that I think that it for our perspective I mean it it also gives us a security that for those of us that are leaving we can't talk in closed sections at the same time as the new board members if they're new to being a board member so it gives everybody a chance to and I think that's correct yeah and I think it sets the um superintendent up for Success because they may have the voice of those who are coming on the board that being said I believe that I am done no later than May 3rd 2023 so feel free to exclude me after that how
082many days and hours is that I think we're down to 90. tonight I said four more meetings till we added three more well I was gonna probably be more we'll have a few more meetings no yeah why not we want to see you guys more instead of before you leave I'll wave at you as I drive by e well I mean there is wrestling on campus so all right Ally I really appreciate the question that you've been asking because I think depending on what you might be reading you're not getting the full story so I think it's so important because I think everybody does a social media search or an internet search and um Even in our own team own Community I've sometimes tried to answer questions when I've seen things that are really um
083to use one way or another and don't prevent what no I just it was on it was in our board packet one day like when this first started yeah yeah you want it can't have it why'd you ask her then yeah right yeah um you know I forgot where all the others were and then Ursula reminded me that it was in the board Docs no it was do you want it I'm serious you can have it Eugene were you at that West game I think that certain two of them gave paper yeah presentations were you at that game I was there how was it it was electric yeah man I was bummed I missed that one great game well I yeah they didn't uh they didn't drop in ranking at all they're still like fourth
084in the state but but they lost to us I still think these can take Bolingbrook they just for some reason they've got them in their head we absolutely can take Yorkville so we didn't beat them by much last time no my team's going down State for the first time since I've stopped coaching Junior High I'm excited yeah I'm excited for them they beat Yorkville by I want to say six the other night wow that's good yeah what I don't miss is going down state and dealing with those hotels don't miss that dealing with who uh the hotel always the same weekend as uh cheerleading statement yeah don't miss that well and I do not miss a surcharge yeah so we go surcharge I think that I oh no that's true and I have really good
085kids something that Laurie heard of it's something that happens if if you got to pay a premium for something because it's it's not necessary applications I have access to access good evening how are you wonderful how about you okay all right yeah nice to meet you yeah you look slightly familiar yeah you look familiar as well yeah I'm Jared you remember how you've been good yeah a long time no long time no you've been well I see yeah Center we'll see we'll just do another one stop it I have to do odle up considering she's familiar with my doodling hello bwp hello good evening to our district um we are ready to start when you are would you guys all like to introduce yourself go ahead uh Jared blogger Dominic Cerrone Alex Swanson Latonya simultane
086Eugene Gatewood and there's one person on the phone maybe Jennifer Johnson hi Jennifer Johnson hi Jennifer I decided not to spread my uh germ to you guys tonight so I appreciate it thank you all right take it away thank you very much on behalf of bwp thank you for having us here this evening us to present our proposal to you as you can see is the slide going up yeah ah right there behind you okay God fooled me there for a minute we have the uh mission of providing direction for outstanding leadership which we think is very important in that we will provide you leadership and collaboration with you which is very important so we'll be working hand in hand with you throughout the process we're now going to introduce the four of us and
087I want to say up front you'll be seeing the four of us we're the ones who will be working this search we thought it was important to have four people for a couple reasons due to the size of your community and also due to the time frame that we have for so for example if we're doing community engagements we can get a lot done with four people here and can do those simultaneously or pair up and twos and that type of thing so I'd like to start off by introducing Steve thank you my name is Steve griesbach and I've been with bwp now for a decade I've done over 40 searches in Illinois Wisconsin Indiana and Minnesota I've also during the time worked the last 10 years worked as an interim superintendent in a couple
088districts one was a pre-k through eight district and the other one was a high school district prior to all that I had a long career in public education I was 10 years as a high school teacher three years in as a middle school assistant principal 11 years as an elementary school principal and 11 years as a superintendent assistant superintendent in DuPage County I share those experiences because as we talk about schools I have my roots in the classroom in leading buildings engaging with families and and students and staff and and that never left me when I went to the superintendent and I don't think it's left any of my colleagues either so with that I'm going to let Phil talk introduce himself thank you Steve my name is Phil Earhart and I'm also a partner
089with the firm I have been in education in the states of Indiana suburbs of Indianapolis suburbs of Cincinnati and then came to Illinois in 2007. I followed my kids up here and have been a superintendent in DuPage County and also did an interim Superintendent at Evanston with that as well I've been with the firm now this is my 12th year I've done about 50 searches in the Midwestern states with that I also serve as the executive director for the Midwest Suburban superintendents Association which involves eight different states and 10 superintendents who are invited from those States I mentioned that that's a rich source that I have of looking at superintendents and I had one call me last night who's interested in moving to Illinois and looking at different districts there in addition we also host
090an aspiring superintendents conference as well at this time I'll turn it over to Deb Hill who's our managing partner who also has a teacher voice so I'm sure that the people uh who are viewing at home or in other places will be able to hear me as mentioned I'm Dr Deborah Hill I'm the managing director of bwp and Associates I've been with the firm for about 16 years and managing director for the last seven I'm a retired school superintendent but more importantly I'm a teacher continuing to be a teacher a faculty member at two different universities my children tell me that I really have failed one thing and that's retirement and so consequently I'm still working as a consultant doing professional development in various locations in addition to that again having served as a university
091um College faculty member I was also president of ascd which is the largest Professional Organization in education with the exception of the teachers union and served there for about 12 years in their leadership role which included legislative activities as well as traveling to about 17 countries to look at what their educational programs look like and so I bring a Global Perspective to the table in terms of when looking and evaluating superintendents again Dr Deborah Hill and I get to manage this team tough job uh but um but delighted to be here and appreciate the opportunity to speak with you face to face uh covet presented some challenges in terms of superintendent searches and so again it's it's really good to be in the field uh and I'll continually not apologize for being a teacher uh
092when I share some other information Omar good evening I'm Dr Omar Castillo and I'm very happy to be here this is my second year with bwp but I have known them for over 10 years now as they placed me for both of my superintendencies I'm currently a superintendent in DuPage County for the keaneyville school district but I spend a lot of my time in on this side of town I was an administrator for Valley View School District for 10 years then moved to Mokena as superintendent and now currently at DuPage County um love this area love my time I lived in Bolingbrook for 15 years um it's just a great opportunity to come back and uh you know rekindle some of those friendships or some of those people I've known from the past so I'm
093happy to work with the team here to find you your next superintendent thank you Omar if we could go to the next slide what I wanted to do is just to set the stage for you that our presentation will include responses to the eight topics that you had provided us we want to make sure we address those and secondly you'll see a topic number there so you can see exactly that we've included those in that and if you would like feel free to ask questions throughout the process that's fine with us as Deb said we're all teachers so we're very much in tune of doing that or if you don't wait to the end that's entirely up to you on doing that I'll turn it over to Deb is going to talk about and I'm
094going to speak briefly because we want to get to some of the other aspects in our both our proposal and then the slides you can see that bwp is a consolidation of three organizations and then it became bwp the fourth organization and it caused us to become National each of the previous organizations sort of had their own little Regional territory but once we merged then we became a National Organization uh and bwp in and of itself was founded in 2002 so we've had um quite a bit of time in this Arena our basic offices in Libertyville Illinois although I live in Evanston Illinois however we do have uh branches in um the in the south in Texas South Carolina a couple of other places I want to talk a little bit about the history of
095our searches we've had over 600 successful searches throughout the years our directorate our board is 45 minority and women we were 50 and then one of our directors retired so kind of stued that um we focus on personalized local service each district is unique there are some similarities with districts but every district has the unique qualities that make you want to have a good superintendent a good leader leadership comes from the top and so we take a look at through a transparent process what you're looking for what are your needs and then try to make that match We Believe In match and fit so we not only do recruiting uh but we also take a look at those who have applied for the position um we believe that students are the Keystone this is all
096about providing them with the best possible education and again my Global background comes into being in terms of looking for candidates who have that perspective as well it's not just about Illinois it's not just about United States it's about the world and our students need to be well prepared and we need to have a leader that believes in that and believes in students and will provide the best opportunities for them in the past five years we've done about 27 searches for districts with 10 000 students about 16 searches with 20 000 or more students and I had the pleasure of leading the search for Chicago Public School CEO which is my hometown I'm Chicago native Chicagoland so I was very delighted to kind of help them change their focus in terms of their educational leader
097in marrying both the political aspect as well as the educational aspect uh in the last three to five years we've presented 46 women or minorities to be placed in superintendent positions I just attended the National Alliance of school educators of black school educators conference um and it was wonderful to see a number of the the superintendents that have been placed through us being very successful in their District so we're very proud of that record we have about a 95 percent um rate of success of superintendents who complete their first contract typically three years and then about a 90 of those superintendents also are received successive uh contracts so we feel very very good about our process in terms of match and fit uh the only other thing I want to want to share with you
098is the notion of why we are special we personalize we don't have a Cadre of superintendents out there that we're looking to find jobs for we are looking to find the best fit and the best match for you and so therefore we may be tapping people on the shoulder that didn't know they were looking for this job but that will be based on what you and the community have told us that you're looking for and I think that that makes us maybe a little bit more unique than some of the other firms in that we don't have a pool we start from scratch with every search and then we utilize the resources that you've heard my colleagues talk about representing in order to be able to successfully do that so we know that in some
099situations um we start off well and it just doesn't work out in spite of all that we do it just doesn't work out so we guarantee that if the search doesn't work out within the first two years we will redo the search for cost that is a Supportive Services cost as opposed to the actual fee so that's one component the other component is that we um Mentor we believe in the successful relationship between the board and the incoming superintendent so we're available for that first year for anything that you need we do not assume that you're going to need some help but we are available by phone or in this case being in the state in an hour away uh in person if we need if need be so we make that available and that's
100it no additional cost as well um we do not pilfer trying to think I was trying to think of a better professional word we don't feel we don't take a superintendent that we've placed someplace else and then move them um because it it might they might be a better fit here at least for that first contract now that does not mean that other people might be in a position and decide they want to come here but it will not be because we've recruited them and so we think that that professional um more and some longevity for the superintendent that you may be seeking Insurance process right as as Deb has said no searches actually the same because we tailor that to your needs and what needs to be done here in the work that needs
101to be done here and so what I'd like to do is take you through our process that's typical and when I say typical this is kind of what it looks like and I'll try to make certain that I'm clear on the work when you guys will be heavily involved and the times when we are heavily involved so you can see that what we'd like to think is that our search is number one people can see and know what's happening when and that's not just you but that's your community as well we think that's important in terms of transparency we think the process that we talk about builds credibility in the decision that you ultimately make because people see the steps and the diligence and how their voices and their input has been used by you
102and we think that's important too and so when I say that let's talk about those steps right now and I'll take through the the nine of them very quickly one through seven are really directed and more heavily involved with us the last two steps really become more of your responsibility because we will not be in the position of choosing your next superintendent you will and that's something that the state expects in your your voters expect here but we will help you and guide you and support you and so that you feel comfortable in that role as school board members making an important decision for your community um in our in our in our first step we would want to meet with you after um if you choose us to kind of outline that search to
103talk about how your search is going to be conducted in the ways that you want it to be and we will guide you through a number of questions that we have you know will it be done in person will it be done virtually will it be done um confidential that you know the only people involved in is the board we have a few clients who have asked us to do it that way for a variety of different reasons that's not typical but that's also worked and been very successful as well we'll look at timelines and Milestones and and most important we're going to talk about how we're going to communicate with each other around this process when we move on to step two we work into our Recruitment and our recruitment goes far and wide
104and it isn't just typical you know IESA or aasa we reach out to to groups with around the country that offer the opportunity for for Educators to come together and work together especially leaders and so we do that and we've also begun working in areas with social media like LinkedIn or and and then the um indeed we've had experience with both of those and we can guide you where to do those as well as where to where to promote your position so we get that recruitment positioned going and then we do work with you and we create an audit of your community we want to know what your community thinks and so we ask people in your community and board members staff members and even we often include high school students three basic questions um
105what are the best things going on in your in your school district and we ask that because candidates ask us and we want to be able to respond with their actual words the second thing we ask is okay what are the challenges facing your school district because we get asked that by candidates as well and we want to be honest with them about what's happening and the third question we ask is what are those personal qualities experiences and skills the next superintendent will need to lead your school district successfully and we ask those questions in a survey an online survey that's available to all stakeholders in stakeholder groups typically that we'll work with you to set up and often we often want to run a community forum and sometimes we do that online because people
106have gotten real comfortable attending those things um and and so anybody in the community who wants to have a chance to participate can do it through the survey and do it through the community forums and so when you get to the end we have a lot of data which we then present back to you along with a leadership profile um one thing Phil just whispered me we also talk to you you know that's probably the place we start we interview all of you individually so thanks Phil for reminding me it's in my notes but somehow I missed it um and then we start recruiting and and I think recruitment is one of our strengths as a firm and I was telling them a story about doing a search two years ago for a a high
107school district where we looked at the demographic Graphics of the district and then I looked at the demographics of other school districts around this around the area and I said who are the who are the great super assistant superintendents in those areas because they're the rising stars and then I talked to some of our colleagues and said okay talk to me about these people and actually called people kind of calm the cold just to see if they were interested we got a terrific candidate out of that process didn't get many but all you need is one and I just want to let you know that we just don't sit back and wait for people to come to us we do that and then we use the data that we gathered in that leadership profile to
108screen all the applicants we use that as our rubric and you will use it as your room to evaluate them in terms of what you do and and then after we've screened those applicants we then vet the top ones because we don't want to make we want to know what's happening in their lives what's available in social media in other places and we don't want to provide you with any surprises and then we will present a slate of as many as six usually a four to six candidacy usually five um to six um and and and we'll present them to you usually in an executive session and talk to you about them and why we believe they are the people you should talk to and we're asking for your support at that level and then
109afterwards we'll conduct a board Workshop to prepare you for your job of how to work and and sort this out we'll teach you how to use those things and then and step eight and nine that's when you do the work these interviews are will prepare you you'll feel comfortable we'll be ready for those things and we suggest two rounds um one where you you interview the Slate of candidates and then you narrow it down from one to three candidates to come back and talk to you further and we think that's a really good process and and during that process you begin to bond and develop that camaraderie and consensus that happens and then we'll support you as you begin employing a superintendent in Step nine thank you Steve it's one of the topics that was
110mentioned was the diversity of candidates and Omar is going to talk to you about that process you can see some of the topics here or some of the things I've already been mentioned but I'll cover since 2016 we have presented just over a hundred underrepresented or women candidates for boards to consider me being one of them that was presented to my board as dad mentioned we have placed 46 women and minority superintendents in the past five years our Consultants we have we contact uh diverse candidates that we know or that we have met through this process and so we we already have a network of people across the country to be able to recruit and once we find out you know what you're looking for in your next leader we will be able to uh
111go out there and start begin recruiting for um this position the uh some of some of us are members of the National Alliance of black School uh Educators as Deb mentioned uh I'm also an active member of the association of Latino administrators and superintendents so we already have a circle of colleagues and friends that you know might be interested in uh the position and those uh those contacts that we have are important when trying to find the next superintendent for any school district thank you Omar next we'll turn to the fees with that and we tried to look at your questions so we really zeroed in on that the consultant fees would be twenty eight thousand five hundred that includes administrative and office expenses stakeholder focus groups engagement that Steve talked about with you the
112electronic survey would be in English and Spanish if you like other languages we can talk about how to do that the verification of credentials of candidates credentials the due diligence and electronic checks as well we also give the assessment made by Gallup called strength finders 2.0 assessment which is done to identify strengths of each of the candidates for that for the expenses we think it'll be around six hundred dollars so that not to exceed amount you'd asked us to do would be a total of 29 100 all in with that other potential costs that the board would make the decision on would be advertisement where you'd like to do that that would be in the planning meeting that Steve mentioned to you the candid travel if there were a candid who was coming from the
113outside that would be paid by the school district we would give them a form to fill out and work with your business office on doing that and then lastly if you would like to have a deep dive we do use a private Company Baker and Eubanks and they will actually do for an additional cost to Deep dive on candidates as well for that let's go to the last page and talk about why should you choose bwp hopefully we've emphasized you tonight our record of search success and we've given you some data on that our combined group here we've done well over a hundred searches over 40 years experiences superintendents probably about 70 years of also teachers principals Etc the process is very important it's going to be very clear and transparent to you and we'll
114be communicating with you so you can put that on your website as well we will also work with the engagements to make sure they're very skillfully done we'll collaborate with the board all the time throughout this process you'll have our cell phone numbers so you'll be able to get a hold of us wherever your contact person would be and lastly we're here to serve you and we're committed to you to do that at that I think our time is up and we'll open it up for any questions that you may have or if you have any clarification that you would like us to do for that um Jennifer Johnson's on the phone Jennifer do you have any questions we'll come back to her Jennifer we'll come back to her okay Ally Eugene no she he
115should go said no okay hold on hold on hold on um I was trying to keep my questions the same so we have kind of a tumultuous community and a big online presence that is maybe just a little bit more tumultuous than some other districts um so I guess I'm looking for someone with experience in that how would you deal with that how do you how do you manage expectations how do you first of all you're not the only District that has 20 dishes but I am particularly in right uh I'm going to if Deb doesn't mind turn this over to her she can give you just a little bit about some of the we call it challenges that we have there and we're very Adept on doing that first of all with regards to
116the technology and communication we believe it's very important that people know where you are what you're doing and what's going to happen one of the key things that we start with is letting the community know what their role is if everybody stays in their Lane then we can have a successful search the board the board is responsible for the hiring of the school superintendent that's one of your most important jobs the community is responsible for providing you with feedback and input and so by clarifying and making those elements known up front here's how the information will be disseminated here's when you're going to get it you're going to need to be flexible in terms of the calendar because if something happens if we have a snowstorm or something and we're planning having a meeting we
117have to move things back but one of the things that we found have been successful with with communities is giving them all the information and recognizing the transparency of the process and providing them with the data I think one of the things that happens then when you ask people to take a survey people get very frustrated when they don't know what the survey results ended up being so why did I do that because um nobody told me what the results were so when we do the surveys we end up having both qualitative and quantitative data to put together this leadership profile the leadership profile is then presented to the board discussed at an open meeting so that the community can hear what we discerned during our search during our research from those um surveys and
118from our interviews and from our focus groups and from the community forum and we look at the agreement that's reached by the community at about an 80 percent level so then we come up with this list of strengths that about 80 percent of the people agreed with so you have people on both ends of the spectrum having had an opportunity to present their case but you really are looking at where are the commonalities and more often than not once you begin to do that people see that there have a lot more things in common than they thought they did so that helps a lot with some of the different groups who have their own perspective so I I like your perspective I think a little bit more what I'm questioning is how candidates perceive US
119based on we have some pretty polarizing groups in the general Community online yeah how do you navigate yeah how do you navigate what the candidates are seeing of us and what is their perception of us and how do we how do we um I'm gonna say two words and then Phil says he has this okay and Again part of it is we everybody knowing what's on the table the candidates as well that's one of the reasons that we do the leadership profile and that we do the audit so that they will know that um this might be an issue that will come up by a certain group so candidates don't walk into it blind you also want candidates that have done their homework because they should not apply for this position if they have not
120had experience with X Y and Z which may be one of your concerns so again it's the transparency piece on both sides both for the candidate as well as for the board and the community thanks Deb I would just add to that as you're right social media is very powerful and has large tentacles that are out there and that's one of the reasons we do the strength and challenges so we know exactly what is out there so we can tell the story behind whatever is going on with social media also with social media we'll be using that with your communications director to make sure that we get a variety of stakeholders who involved again on doing the survey also are very much involved on doing the community engagement groups as Deb mentioned to you we're
121willing to do those in person but also do them in hybrid as well we'll do some as well uh with that and have had a really good turnout of doing that virtually lastly we're very skilled too if there's a community engagement going on we've had situations where there'll be a person there who has their own agenda hopefully I said that very diplomatically and we are very skilled on redirecting that and going back to here's the reason why we are here with that Allison does that help with that yeah yeah um we did some searches last year that were pretty high profile in communities and Phil and I worked directly on those and I know Deb worked at Chicago which can't get much more high profile than anything and and one of the things we we
122would also say is that um while people look and see what's going on in the community they also watch what boards are doing and how they handle that and how they listen and involve people but but keep true to where they are as as a board in their mission and governance and and those are big important things to keep in mind as well um for those of us in education we're fully aware that our particular election has garnered State attention so if we get to a point where you're you're not seeing the pool that you want will you approach us and tell us okay well that's fine yeah or you can add that in will you will you approach us and say hey we're having we're having some issues you you may want to consider
123X Y and Z that's a great question Jared that the key to us is ongoing communication with whoever's going to be the contact person on the board so that you're continually uh kept a date what's going on and we're going to be very transparent with you very direct with you so you know exactly what's going on at every moment we're not going to try to slant things or anything of that nature so you know exactly where we stand with that too and then Deb was going to also add we work for you we work for the Board of Education and we will tell you the Good The Bad and The Ugly and consequently if there is if we don't find a pool we're not just trying to hire a person we're trying to make the
124best match in the best fit and we can come back to you and say we've looked at this pool of candidates this we don't find anybody that meets that 80 threshold this is what we recommend that you do which is why I talked earlier about flexibility in terms of the calendar because we may have to go back out and search again and see what was missing in the candidates that we had that we now have to pressure and and push a little harder for to get the right candidate so from that perspective um we again work for you flexible calendar we know you'd like to have someone start at the beginning of the school year but if we don't find that person we keep working at it until we do don't know if I asked
125this part you've had have you had to do this before like have you had experience in that realm before uh yes I'm sure but not not often but we have had you know instances where uh the board uh ended up not being able to reach consensus because we really expect and encourage the board to have a consensus vote on the candidate you cannot have someone who comes in on a five on a three 4-3 vote when that their first part of their job is going to be trying to get those other people that didn't like them on board that means that they're not attentive to what you've hired them to do and so again we try to encourage the board and to use all of the support mechanisms to have that happen that includes the
126community so I'm going to tell one quick story the community does not get to vote that's not their role so if you have three candidates that you are bringing forward and you determine because we've determined this at the beginning of the planning session that you want the community to provide some feedback and some input we don't recommend that the community get to see all three candidates we recommend they get to see one they're using the leadership profile they're providing you with feedback about how they feel that that candidate matches that profile so then you have three candidates you have three separate sets of community feedback on the individual candidates so you don't have a group that's pushing for one person over another that becomes really critical again in terms of the success of the superintendent
127and being focused on the job that you're hiring them to do rather than focusing on trying to get individuals on board who did not vote for them because they're not voted Lord oh I would just add one thing debit talked about the consensus process which is real key as Steve had mentioned to you when we do the session with you talking about interview questions we'll give you an interview guide if you'd like to use that we'll also spend time based on our experiences and expertise how to develop that consensus there are some key steps on how to do that to avoid having something where it's a popularity contest that makes sense to you just want to add that to that who had the next question for us Lori Lori my first question and that is
128how often do you find that the compensation package the salary the annuities things like that that your candidates um come in with a different set of salary expectations and compensation expectations than what the district has in mind it doesn't happen and that's because we would like to have a conversation with you about some parameters up front um and so when someone says well I'm making you know a million dollars here and we'd say gosh I'd like to get that job um we kind of say that's not where we're this this community is at and that's not yet where the board is going and so what we try to to be upfront about is say you know is to be be realistic with them as well as uh and that's based on the feedback we get
129from you as well as what you're looking at in terms of the compensation package we asked your finalists your your three your two or three or your one person to give us just a little overview of what their expectations are so that when you begin that conversation you already know well they're expecting um health benefits full of family health benefits and our health benefits are really only for the individual so you kick off that conversation already having some preconception about what they're what they're looking for as well as our having spoken with you to say particularly as well as far as salary is concerned and we'd be happy to work with your business people to give you the information about well what is the going salary uh for people with their with specific experience besides
130districts that we have all of those things so that we bring in all of that data and information into the conversation from the very beginning so as Steve says we very rarely have a dissonance between the candidates that you're looking at because we will tell people upfront you're looking for 500 000 it's not going to happen here so keep looking okay thank you so we have two more questions we'll run a little short on time and I'm not going to short you but after Dominic then we'll get Jen who's um coming back to the phone now this is our relatively simple you said a deep dive you know into their background can you just do a little more detail of what a deep dive is you gotta be happy to with the firm that we've
131used in the past that's all they do that's their job and that's contracted out separately with this we work with you and we'll broker that with you in the district any employee that you hire the second one though is very important and that talks about social media news articles blogs um anything of that nature is also done with that and you would get a full report in writing on that as well we have a few districts who use that we also do our own search with that as well as far as we just don't call the references on the list because everyone's going to put good people on there we know a lot of people we also have another person who is very good on doing virtual and Google searches for us and she will
132give us a report as well so there's a lot of different levels in that planning meeting we would talk about how would you like to do that and then we'll talk more in depth on it when we get down to who are the final candidates to see what options are available for you and that'd be up to the board of how you'd like to have us handle that thank you all right Jennifer are you there yes uh thank you all very not very much for being here tonight I know that a few of you mentioned that you have been in the merger greater such as Bowling Brook I would like each of you if you could answer if you have any direct connections to our Oswego School District um our village of Oswego any of
133our greater government entities the fire department the police department or if you have family members living directly in our school district I'll start off and I'll give it to Deb on that debit I talked about that driving out here I have been into Page County I lived in Saint Charles I've been to a couple of fundraising for Charities here at play at your golf course at and have known some of the Oswego administrators over the years for that Deb can talk to you about some connections she has my grandson's girlfriend yeah has cousins here and I asked her just by happenstance last week if she could babysit with our 15 month old puppy who just had was neutered and so has to be watched uh for the next few days and then saying that I
134said because I'm going to Oswego to do a presentation and she said oh I got could go I'm gonna call and check and make sure that they're reading and looking and checking to see because she knows that this is what I do so that is my connection so she's anxiously awaiting what I think of and what I thought of Oswego when I get home to relieve her of nurse scratchy duties with the puppy all right thank you my own relationship is not with any of the organized groups I I am guilty of stealing one of your principles to come work for us as a middle school principal a dozen years ago seven years ago the other thing uh you've been forgiven Steve she's really good by the way the other thing I would just say
135is that when we talk about focus groups we would ask you what are some of those focus groups that you would like if you'd like to have something governmental agencies the youth serving agencies will reach out to them along with your Communications person person to make sure that we involve them in the process as well foreign because I'm uh you know spend time in Bolingbrook as mentioned I do have friends in Oswego and and I do spend some uh time over here at Gatherings uh you know with some old friends but not no other connections but that's my I I know people are going to ask so I'm going to say this that I know I know Omar uh but I never worked directly with him uh Omar was at lucancic I did interview for
136a job at Luke hansik but I I did not get to I did not get the job so I never worked directly for Omar um I was at Jane Adams so and Omar was that um uh lukehancic so if anybody wants to know we worked in the same district however um I never worked worked uh for um steel I never had the honor that that actually just just a quick follow-up on that only because our our outgoing superintendent came from Valley View and our associate superintendent also came from Valley View did you work with either of those individuals Dr sparlin okay thank you all right I'm sorry can you repeat that who did you work with uh with John sparlin John sparler was a principal at one of the other middle schools when I was
137a middle school principal there Faith was the persistent superintendent of Elementary education when you were what did you have any direct reporting relations with relationships with them no right yeah thank you okay okay that was a long time ago yes yeah how many years was that that was uh 13 years ago you can't see him but he has a little more gray hair now so I do is there anything else that we can answer for you at this time I think we have and answered all of our questions and we thank you very much for your time you're very welcome we asked this one question what's your uh timeline just so we would know that yep our board meeting is on February 6th and we will have a decision then okay thank you very much
138thank you I'm sorry sorry I apologize so thank you no thank you good to see you again take care take care thank you yeah thank you thank you okay does anyone have any comments regarding this process you want to say we're on 4.1 board member comments you won't want to say anything okay so I think the process is going to look like this do we have any public comments no no public comment nope so um oh want to provide your total scores to Ursula oh well wait no no do we we don't need to provide them because on Monday on Monday we're going to have the conversation and people can talk about it then and then we're going to vote on Monday is everybody good with that if you want to fill out your rubric
139so that everything's clean and I mean clear and fresh and you know what you're doing and yeah that's fine we're when are we gonna have the discussion about making sure that we're communicating timeline process to the community well well um so first of all so on the website is is um our information portal I understand that but I but I do think that we need to make sure that we're reiterating at every chance we get that that we are that well I think we are clear are we all clear that what Jared is is referencing I would imagine is that the next um superintendent will not be selected by this group but will be selected when the new um candidate come in are we I don't think we I don't think we did right I
140don't know that we've decided that so that's my that's the heart of my question is is that going to come Monday also or are we I think that'd be a good time to have it happen then let's have that then okay fair enough okay so um can I have a motion nope I can I can read it or you want to read it um I make a motion to enter closed session under statute five ilcs 120 slash two c one the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of certain employees and individuals second Miss simulton aye Miss Swanson aye Mr ploger aye Miss Doyle aye Miss Johnson Mr