001Dogen here. Gorman here. Hurst here. MVA. Papis. Watson here. And then do we have any public comment? Oh, sorry. One more thing. Could we do uh So, I need a motion and a second for to approve the agenda. So, move. Second. All in favor? Okay, we will move on to the special presentation. Go ahead. That's us. Good evening. Uh, thank you for having us. My name is Brian Barnhard. I'm an associate with School Exec Connect. Um, this is Kevin Ome. Kevin will uh introduce himself in a few minutes. I've been an associate um with um school exec connect for double digit years. Uh but through that uh my experience I was a school superintendent in Western Springs for 22 years um and a principal there in the same district for three years prior to that.
002So that's some of my Illinois experience. U Kevin will share his u previous education experience as well. Uh also a retired superintendent. So we are very pleased uh to have a chance to present to you and talk to you u about your future leadership here in the district. Um just go there. I know how to do that. Excellent. So um we know that you are talking to many firms and you're talking to really qualified firms. School Exec Connect I think uh really rises towards the top of that. Uh we've been around for more than a couple of decades. Uh over 600 successful searches. One of the strengths of school executive uh speaking from an associate standpoint, Kevin owns the company. So he has a different view and you'll hear more about that, but that's one
003of the important things is why he is here tonight. Um we have consultants all through the country, mainly in the Midwest. And we will uh as we talk about the search process, one of the things we will rely on is that network of school exec connect consultants because we talk all the time. We share uh great leadership possibilities with one another and that's one of the real strengths um of SEC. Um you can see uh a couple of things as you as you work down the bullets. Every search has been completed on time and within budget. That is really really important for over two decades worth of searches, 600 searches, 97% success rate. And you can see uh the definition as far as good standing with the school board after the first contract. that is
004pretty pretty well unheard of uh in the sector and something we're very proud of. And then um when the time is right, we're happy to share a broad list of references of folks who we've worked with in the past from a search plan. Kevin will dive into some of the details, but uh one of the really important pieces from our vantage point, we'll open the search process, but that that second step of creating the candidate profile is really the important part. In fact, we are having a little bit of offline conversation with some of the members of the community who are here. We will conduct a lot of the success of our searches happens right at the beginning and that is we're going to work very directly with you. We'll we'll treat the school board
005as uh a subsector of the community. We'll we'll talk with you in great detail as far as attributes that you're looking for in the next leader, but we're going to extend that and have the exact same conversation with community, parents, and staff. Like we we will go out and we will meet with those folks, invite them to public uh forums, and we want to hear the truth. We want to hear what people are looking for in that next leader as well as we will put an online survey together that that'll reside on our websites and we will collect that data. We'll take all of that and we'll create a profile on what you tell us, what the community is looking for in the next leader. We will present that right back to you. Uh through
006that process, it's not sequential because we will be doing this uh as we are collecting that data. We will develop the candidate pool. Kevin will talk about how not only will we advertise to get people coming to us, we will go out, this is where we use our network, and we will go find leaders uh as well. We will recruit those folks and then um kind of one of our last formal steps with you, although we're with you the entire step of the way, is we will uh put a slate together for you uh to begin the interview process. And our job is to make your job really tough because we're going to give you multiple great candidates that you're going to have to select from our search process. Again, uh without going into uh
007crazy detail, it's just a summary of what I just said. We will advertise locally and nationally. We will engage the community as we talked about with both those focus groups and the online survey. We will do the aggressive recruiting. Our one of our biggest jobs then is that screening and interviewing. Um, typically we will see 18 to 25 people face to face. Uh, and we'll try to put a slate together typically of six to eight people for you. Uh, we'll present that slate. We will support to whatever levels and this is uh feedback we will look for you from you. Uh, we will support the interview process uh all the way through to whatever level you feel best and feel most comfortable with. Uh, will screen the candidates to make sure that you're getting folks
008who ought to be considered for leadership uh in the district and then uh we will provide guarantees of the search process that will be uh part of what Kevin will lead off as well. kind of offscript piece. Um, we're both uh west suburban, southwest suburban uh former superintendents. Uh, we certainly uh would love to partner with you in this process. Part of this is professional like we're interested. Some of it is personal. Um, one of the things that I that was an attraction when Kevin called me to see if I would be interested, um, I grew up in a town of 4,000 in Ohio. We had one traffic light and my dad was the superintendent there for 21 years. I know what stability means. I know what strong leadership means. I know what transparency and
009communication look like uh in all settings and I know how important it'll be here in Burlington. So, there's a personal draw for me and I look forward to continuing the conversation with that. Dr. Thank you very much. Nice to meet you all. I'm Kevin. I'm the president and corner of the firm doing searches with school for 15 years now. Um little bit of my background. I was a high school math teacher, chair of the department suburban Chicago high schools. Then I became a principal at High School in Nor. I was there for eight years high school principal and then my last years in PK 12 education was as a at Harold Community High School again in the southwest suburbs. Um I left that job, became a full-time associate professor at 48 University, which used to
010be college. Um I helped run their doctor programs and run their lure program, their superintendent lure. So I'm still very very involved as Brian touched on bring a lot of professionals in here. I'm a math guy. A lot of our interaction with people survey and focus groups and open forms that Brian referenced. We have methodology that's quite proprietary. The average superintendent term in the United States right now is 3.2 years. Our average term for superintendent place is 6.7 years. That number talked about 97% success rate. That's the percentage of superintendent place school districts that receive a second contract. That's unheard of in this industry. And it's because what you need, what the candidates bring to fit exactly. Every district is unique. Is unique. We'll find the right person for you. Our guarantees again are unheard
011of. That's why we put them up there because they're very rarely invoked. And benefits first slate of candidates. Does that meet your expectations? We'll reopen the search. Hi, how are you? Good. How are you? Good. The search until you're satisfied with the slate of candidates that you that you are interviewing. The first 24 months of that person being placed, we do the search for free. Another search for you. Again, a lot of firms guaranteed to one year or something like that. We don't care if it's their choice or your choice. They leave with the first 24 months. We do another search for you for free um except for expenses. We won't recruit your first we won't recruit you in their first two contracts. So again, our guarantees are unheard of and we take that very
012very importantly because um we rely on our expertise and our passion for education allows cost associated with with the search is 165 for the fee itself. Our expenses won't won't exceed $2,200. That's usually mileage and copy and things like that. Advertising, we'll talk with you about that if we're chosen at the planning. We'll give you a lot of details about what we feel works and what doesn't work as far as advertising. And then we always recommend that one finalist choose have a criminal court liability background check to make sure there's nothing in the background that we haven't uncovered in our own diligence. There's very rarely something that comes up that we think that's a good marker that that you have demonstrated to the community that that you don't want someone who perhaps has a an
013opal arrest in their record. We'll figure that out much before that. Um the timeline is is think of think of this as pencil. If we open the search in June, um we could start doing the profile development um with our focus groups and our survey and open forms in September after Labor Day. We want to make sure the school year starts and then you have somebody selected by November. If you guys go to the triple conference or not, but that's usually kind of our marker for this first round of finalists. So we in early November, you can probably sign a contract by start. Having said that, let's say you guys put your heads together, you say, "Hey, we want to have somebody ready to go by December 1st, walk in the door here and become
014permanent superintendent." No offense, we can adjust time any way you want to. We'll talk about those things in the planning meeting, but but these are all your decisions. We have suggestions, but these are all your decisions to make. Um before I turn over to questions, I'm going to turn over to Brian to talk to you about one feature that that perhaps you might be interested in. Yeah. Um, one of the good decisions you made, um, as you started moving forward was hire hiring Kylin Griff to be your interim superintendent to bring stability, professionalism, all of that to the district. I think that was really wise. Long time, let's be clear, Kyle and I were long-term colleagues, District 101, District 102 in Lens Township, and Griff's grandkids went through my district. So, we know each other
015really well. ask them all the questions when you know everybody leaves and find out the real stuff and only listen to the good things. That's the first thing. But but with that comes only a few months of experience in the community and in the district. And we know that, you know, we we've tried to keep up with the happenings in the district. We know you've also had a loss of some other key leaders here recently in the last handful of days. um we can certainly um they're very able but we can assist in that search that piece of the search process as well. We'll talk fees and all that kind of stuff at at the appropriate time if if that's the wish of the board. But we know that's really really important and we understand
016the timeliness of hiring principles given the fact that it's mid June. We can assist with that as well. Over 120 searches in the past three or four years. So we're very used to that. High school principal happy discussion with you about that. We want to make sure you the right leadership to help your students move forward in this world. The second feature I wanted to highlight as well is that because our process is proprietary, we depend on the board's permission to engage stakeholders in a wide variety of methodology. We want like Brian talked about community members. We want parents. We want staff, administrators, teachers, not certificated staff. Brian left out my favorite group to talk to and that's the high school students. They know what's going on here think that they do. We'll designate them
017as a stakeholder group as well. Happy to take whatever question you might have. Gentlemen, thank you for that. Um, one question I've asked this of some of the other companies um who we've spoken to. You mentioned um surveys um that um you'd um roll out to the community if I understand correctly to um to help with with a profile and what people are looking for. Can you give me just a couple examples of what you might be the kinds of questions you might be asking in that survey or what you're trying to get to? We use like I said a proprietary okay survey that's determined to be what's called a forced choice survey. So we may ask certain survey takers to answer series of questions on their perception of the district. I feel that we
018have leadership in our middle school. Strongly agree, strongly disagree. I feel that our students have to be successful in their lives. Strongly agree, strongly disagree. We ask about 50 questions. There are some open response options at the end as well. So, somebody has an opinion that they want us to hear confidentially. We will take it into account profile. Those are the kinds of questions we're talking about. I don't have a list in front of me, but It's a force choice that we feel very very well that fits. Right. The only thing I would add is we we ask about characteristics of the successful leader in the community. We also ask what are the perceptions of strengths and weaknesses currently uh within the district and and why we ask those in part is we are looking
019for big broad themes because we're going to hold these forums and you probably if you get people at your board meetings you probably know who's going to show at your board meetings. Like we want representation in uh the focus groups but we're going to get a wider swath via the surveys and we are really looking for those themes and we're going to you back the themes. The one off, the two off, three off comments probably will not make it unless there's something uh extraordinary that you at least should hear you. That won't make the the profile because you you're looking for that broad perspective from the community that that's part of that looking for themes. We have it people in the firm that make sure that the person can only take the survey once they
020don't want to hear the same voice. We'll make you do it. Thank you. Those protections build. I hope that answers. It does. Thank you. One question I had was you mentioned the average term for superintendent nationally. Illinois I've heard is like 2.8. That's right. It's actually less and that's right. It in Illinois it appears to be kind of a transient position obviously given the low tenure sometimes through the first contract. What do you guys feel separates you guys from the others that's driving your retention? That sixy year average that multiple contract like what makes us so successful is a variety of things. One is that people who believe in but 67 people do this because we think it's super super important kids and have the right opportunity for that fit right if that fit is
021right and teachers and staff want them to stay those two elements are in place because background work you're going to have a good fit probably for a long Yeah, it it is fit and it really starts with what you all tell us and then what we get from the stakeholders because we're taking that to the prospective candidates that we have. It really is about fit two ways. That's that is I think the key difference of school administrators which is the largest professional education group United States asked us last couple years last year this year to present meology why the numbers because we each do it with question. Thank you very much. Thank you question. Yeah, absolutely. We're going to discuss it tonight. Um hopefully tonight. If not, then we'll probably tape it until Monday. If
022you make a decision tonight and it's us, on my card that I want to get this right. You guys need us to get it right. So given the opportunity Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Good to see you again. Thank you. I won't come shake all the hands. Goodbye to you. Thanks. Okay. Thank you. Nice to meet you all. Thank you. Take care. Thank you. Good. Would you like us just to start then? Absolutely. All right. I think rather than Okay, good. Rather than just show slides, we just as soon talk through this. You have the handouts and we'll just do really really uh quick introductions. I just uh to start off, I just want to say that uh how much we appreciate being here and that I hope after
023our short presentation and questions and answers, you'll find that uh we have the energy uh the expertise and experience to work with you and for you to find the superintendent who will be the perfect fit for this growing community. Um and and that it is it was it's been interesting to drive out here. I haven't been out here in probably three or four years. And just as as you drive out, you just see enormous potential. Uh not just for growth, but for educational excellence. And that's why that's why we're here. And I hope you noticed on our slide presentation, our real stars were the students. Those are all your students in there that we pulled out various websites and Facebook pages because we are here first and foremost for your students, your your present and
024your future students. I'm Max McGee. the president of the firm everything from a substitute teacher to state superintendent but what's most important I've been doing searches since 2018 and um I grew up in Lraange Illinois and product Township public high school and just uh I'm really committed to public education doing searches for public education uh I never tell anybody I'm a retired superintendent because that's not my job my job is to serve uh school districts and find the best leaders I am Lyn Burks um 24 year school board president. Um I've been in your position. Um I've uh been through the process of hiring superintendent probably five times. It's the most important decision a school board can make. It's also a very daunting process. Um I'm an I'm actually a human resources executive. Um I
025spent 24 years in K12 but also 30 years in higher education. um on the human resources side um the it is the most important hiring decision that you can ever make. It is is not something and it's one of the reasons why that when I left the school board because this is our job is to serve you. We don't serve other jobs. We don't have other jobs. Our job is to serve you and support you to find the right leader at the right time uh that is best for Burlington Central. And so um being so passionate about in in and everything is in disruption. Everything has changed. Everything since co has changed. So the leader you might have needed four years ago isn't the leader that you need today. Um you've been in flux. You've
026had some you had some interim pieces. You need stability and you need to be able to have that leadership to be able to guide you to that next level. Um so I'm honored to be here. I understand and have empathy for the roles that you serve. Um and in this in this important that you have ahead of you. Hi, good evening. My name is Carrie Carrie Ferrero. Um I am a retired super superintendent and proud of it. Uh 15 15 years as a as a page county uh superintendent at elementary school school district. I too am an HR specialist. um have intense experience in that in that area and I also work in higher high red like Flynn. You didn't mention you work in higher ed did you? I think I did. Did she? I
027should pay attention. um in in in higher ed I'm um I work post uh graduate studies for educational educational leadership and and we usually say this at the end but um um we just want to say thank you uh for raising your hand and stepping up to uh to put yourself up for election to serve the kids of your community. Not sure there's too many more noble things to do in in this world to do good things for kids. So thank you for your service. But Jerry, you want to start just share a little background about the firm and uh the right people for the job? Yes, thank you. Max Hya um Hazard Young and and um firm was founded in 1987, so 38 38 years. We're um pretty much the oldest firm um throughout
028the the nation. We're also probably the largest firm uh throughout the throughout the the nation. We have in the vicinity of 140 associates that work for our company from from coast uh coast to coast. And when you contract with HYA, um the three of us would be doing your your search, but then you also get access to our incredible network. Can you imagine 140 associates and and as Lynn referenced, we don't um have any active superintendent in our in our firm um because just imagine being a being a and Kyle knows this, being a being a superintendent um running a school district and then doing searches on the site. Somebody's going to get cheated. Um we don't do that at HY HYA. We make a commitment as Lynn said, we work for you and we're
029going to work fulltime for you to get the best person to meet your needs at this at this time. Um, HYA um network with those 140 or so associates. Um, we know just about every educational leader nation nationwide. It's pretty hard to find a candidate that someone in our network doesn't have a direct relationship or a little bit of an indirect one one person off relationship with them. Uh we have a database of candidates. We have over 6,500 applicants on applicants people that have registered with us say please um consider us for any superintendent searches that you believe we're qualified. So we can search that database once we do an assessment um and go through our process and develop an a leadership profile to look what candidates um could best meet your needs. We already
030have a a tremendous head start right right there. We do a monthly newsletter. Um we send out over 30,000 email newsletters um every every month. our website. If you haven't had a chance to take a look at our website, please please do. It's hyaarch.com. Um it has a job posting um section of that website. And if you're a superintendent or a cabinet level educational administrator, that's the place you keep an eye on if you're looking for a position. We post every opening throughout the nation on that site. So that that site alone um uh I think per month gets about 30,000 unique unique hits um sometimes as high as 40 or 45,000 in a in a month. So people are looking at HYA um and are connected with with HYA and that gives us tremendous
031um advantage in aggressively recruiting the very best candidates to meet your to meet your needs. We have a brickandmortar office. Um we are a true professional search firm. Um, we're not in someone's basement or in somebody's garage. We're all virtual. We have an office and it's staffed. There's people there during the business hours. We have people in in IT to provide support. Um, we have a truly technical um advantage to compared to other other search firms are out there and you get a handful of retired superintendent um good people and so on and say let's do let's do searches. We've been doing this for 38 38 years. Um, and we believe we're very very successful. In your in your um paperwork, there's also um a list of um um searches done by other other search
032firms and some of them might you might be considering. And and the reason we show this is that um we truly are in a different league when it comes to number of searches um nationwide. We average right now uh 80 searches a a year. Uh we've done well over 1,600 superintendent searches. Um this is not new to us. We're a very seasoned professional company that does the the right thing for for school school districts. And if I can add to that and this 140 associates across the country, we're a community of practice. So every search we learn we learn things and so we we we get together and we we share feedback about what we're seeing in districts, how we can strengthen our services, how we can better serve you as school boards. And so
033we are we are literally connected and and so you not only get us as your as your team, but you have an entire support network that that we really do truly grow and learn and evolve from each other. So all the firms have about the same process, but as we go through this quickly, we'll talk about how ours differs through that. So I'm going to ask you to start with engage and then I'll do the uh recruit and selection and Carrie, you can do the transition piece. So we believe the most important part is engaging with your stakeholders. Um and and this is what we've customized this process and so um through our proposal you saw that there was a survey. Um you all had input on that survey. Um it's a standardbased survey that
034that is at research standards with uh reliability um and statist you know it has statistical rigor there. Um, we also complement that survey with focus groups, stakeholder groups, one-on-one interviews with each one of you. Um, you know, we we tour your schools. We, you know, we want to go into the classrooms. We want to see how the kids interact with one another. We want to see the culture firsthand. It's not about finding you the best leader in the country. It's about finding you the right leader at this right time. And so we spend an incredible time in this engage phase. Um um and we deploy robust researchbased practices both qualitative and quantitative to be able to develop something that we call leadership profile. And that leadership profile guides really it guides you as a board
035in terms of your priorities. It's a wonderfully healthy process as well because then it can form a strategic plan. It can also inform board goals. The that you will get from us from our engage phase is extremely robust that have multiple purposes and we take the time to also interact with your stakeholders and get their opinions to ensure their voice as part of this process that also really help good thanks as you mentioned the the survey that's all your survey uh and that's a distinguishing difference most firms just have offtheshelf here's something that we use for everyone we don't your survey is your survey and we work with you to develop all the questions. So, you can ask whatever you want and some of them are about superintendent, characteristics, qualifications, others are about state of
036the district issues, your strategic plan, whatever. But as we move into the recruit phase, um Carrie mentioned just a few moments ago about uh our our website. The reason we get so many hits is because we list everybody's job. We list our competitor's job. It's like that old movie Miracle on 34th Street. you know, the guy, hey, you don't have this at Macy's. Santa sends you over across the street to, you know, gimbals or whatever it was. Um, because we think it's important to serve the profession and also it's a good draw for people. Honestly, most of our candidates will will come not just through a a standard application, but they'll come through our survey and through recruiting. So, we talk about aggressive recruiting, we mean aggressive recruiting. We go out, we find people. When
037we interview each of you, we ask you, hey, do you know any names we should we should think about? We interview your staff, anybody you know, you've heard of that we should try to recruit and um and we pursue each and every one of those leads. We um also once we get those leads and get the applications in and you decide what goes into those applications, uh we don't again we have a standard application format. Our preference is to see what you want. Do you want a resume, a cover letter? Do you want a 90-cond video? Do you want an essay? Do you want an example of a work product? Whatever you want, we will put in there. And when we uh put that on our website, we'll also put in along with a leadership
038profile, which we use to recruit candidates uh and which we use to screen candidates. But you can put on anything that you want on that. You want to put your strategic plan up there for folks to see, we'll do that. So that's when we talk about what distinguishes us is this whole customization business. You know, um my my middle school granddaughter can get, you know, customized Converse bejeweled tennis shoes, you know, in 48 hours. So we we certainly ought to be able to give you a customized uh search and that's what we intend to do. Um I think another thing that we do differently when we uh after we recruit people and get their applications, we put them into a board portal. You get to see every applicant. You get to see every applicant's paperwork.
039So, you're not just relying on us. We will bring you a slate of people we think are the best fit based on the leadership profile, but you get to see every single one of those candidates. And so, when we come to you after we have done our our interviewing, our background screening, our all that we do, um when we've done through our analysis, when we've done our matching, we've used our rubrics and we'll bring you five or six people a week into the bisfit. It is not unusual for boards to say, "Yeah, we like one through five, but what about eight and nine? Um, can we interview them or can we replace three and four with with eight nine?" That again, this we work with with you and for you. And I and I think
040that's another distinguishing um difference. And just if I can add, when we bring you your first slate of candidates, we screen them at such a high level, we truly believe that all on that first slate can do the job. So, we don't just give you like, you know, two good candidates and we just throw in a couple other candidates to make it seem like we provided you. We that slate that we deliver to you, we believe they can be your next superintendent. Um, so that's, you know, we use Sherm Standards to screen them as well. Um, so what that is, I had to ask society, society of human resources society, which is the standard of human resources, talent acquisition, recruiting. it is the highest standard that all institutions actually private and public um you know
041kind of use as a as a north star. Um so that's how robust our practices are and so that's how serious we are about that first slate. So then it comes to the select phase which is where you do the interviewing. Um so that generally boards do a first round and a second round. Uh we help supply interview questions scenarios based on again that leadership profile. Um, we don't think it's worth anybody's time to say, "Hey, what's your greatest strength? What's your greatest weakness?" Because my greatest weakness is really a strength. You know those standard answers you get. So, we like to make the questions and scenarios based on what we found in the leadership profile, what we heard from you in your interviews. And then we provide a list of of look fors, you
042know, bullet points that that we hope you're you're finding in there. And uh we also give you a rubric so you can rate every every candidate. Again, this is all customized to your your search. Um, for the second round of interviews, and we sit with you during the interviews if you like. Some boards just prefer to do it themselves, but you know, we like to be in there. We'll help facilitate that process where you narrow it from five, six, seven down to two or three finalists. And then for the finalists, we'll work with you on whatever you want to do for those final interviews. Some boards just want want to do the interviews. Others want to spend them a day and a half, two days in the district meeting with all kinds of different groups.
043And again, what what we'll hear from your constituents. We'll hear from you what you want that final process to look like. Um, we will not recommend who you choose. That is your decision. We'll bring you people that we think are a good choice. We'll help facilitate the process, but it is your call. So um K you want to very quickly talk about transition phase and then um I think in the uh rest of the slides there's a a timeline and a pricing structure we can open up for questions after that but just what we do in the transition phase. Yeah. And so our job doesn't stop once you select a superintendent and you approve a super superintendent. We're there to support you and support your new sup superintendent. Our our timeline which over in a
044minute has has us um has you landing in December, January to select your your new superintendent. That gives a sixmon runway for a very nice transition. We will meet um to develop that foundational relationship between you and the new super superintendent. We'll go through a workshop so um uh the board and the superintendent fully understand each other's roles and respects that and and and then we'll work on priorities. We'll base those priorities on the search that we just did, talking to all your talking to you and talking to all of your your stakeholders in the in in in the in the community. Um, we will help develop a 100 day plan with you and the and the s for that super superintendent with obviously with the superintendent's input and we will support that person as
045they go through that. We want to do everything possible so when July one comes this person has the greatest chance not just for success but for maximum input a maximum impact uh for your for your school school district. um we will help you develop goals um um so you can evaluate that superintendent for the upcoming year and when July one comes around we don't go away either you're part of our network then and and and and you are always welcome to reach out to us and we will reach out and check with you and we will definitely reach out and check with your new super superintendent. Um, we didn't say this during we were talking about our company, but uh the the three of us are are are very personal in in individuals. Um, we
046we we love what we do. Um, we're readily available to you anytime during this process or after the process three years from now. You can call any of us up on our cell phones. We sleep on our cell phones and and and we'll pick up. uh you shoot us a text or you send us an email and you're going to get an instant response. You're not going to get somebody calling you back in 24 hours and so on. Um as your consultants, if you contract with us, we will be there for you. Um you'll have immediate access to us anytime you anytime you want. And it's the reason why we have the highest longevity um statistic in the industry. We have a 94% satisfaction rate and that's over our 38 plus years. And I think
047we share I think our clients I mean we encourage you to reach out to all of our references and even those that wrote letters on our behalf because they've been through the process with this team and they're you know you know and and they can explain to you the just just the intimate relationship that we developed with you because to make sure that these learners in Grton Central are best served because that's what's most important to us. So, just to wrap it up, your your timeline, you're getting a great start on it. This is the perfect time. And, you know, we we our goal is to have a superintendent uh select have you select a superintendent before the the 1 of January, give that person a long runway for transition and um it's a very
048doable timeline. We can start any time. In fact, uh if you were to ask us, do you have uh any questions uh for us? If you were to ask us that, you know, my first question is, hey, when can we start because we are ready to go as soon as the contract's approved. And with that, I think uh we would like to answer any and all questions. You mentioned tenure. What is your average retention rate for superintendent place? Five years. Yeah. So, so we our our metric is if they that 94% is do they get through the first contract that that so you know I really can't tell you what the average is for the firm but that's uh our measure of success do they get whether and most of the contracts are three years
049so how many years um or I should say how long will you not recruit that place superintendent so our our policy at hway is is three So our policy is we won't we place a superintendent we're not going to to look to steal your superintendent within three years. However, we build our business on our reputation and and after three years or four years if if we thought there was a possibility that your superintendent could do an excellent job, we would reach out to you and we would talk to you and and so on. We're not in the business um um for the superintendent. We're in the business for the school districts. And so your relationship with us is critically critically important. To piggyback on his question, do you guys offer a guarantee at all? Yes,
050we do. And that may have been that was a lot. I think our proposal was the longest one. I had a chance to read them all. Um the uh yeah so it's a the really the first two years if if the majority the first year no matter what so if family I mean somebody could get sick the superintendent you may say this is not a good fit you know you're out the door we'll do it for free we'll do it for free the first two years if the majority of the board is still selected superintendent still on the board and the reason we do it we say the majority of the board because you know as I'm sure you've read there can be board elections people run on, hey, I want my own person in
051or, you know, just a philosophical shift. Um, so but yeah, and and really the only cost is there there aren't any costs. I mean, if you ask us to do a fullblown engage phase, we'll have to talk about that. But and we I think I've had to do one uh I did for roaring for Colorado. We had to do one where it was a year and a half and and it was superintendent's fault. He had uh deceived the board on something and um but I think I listed Katherryn Coolenberg as a reference. Um and it was kind of a similar district more kind of a rural suburban area um pretty far west to Denver and he just it was terrible. I mean he he just was not straightforward with the board and um so I
052said Katherine will take we're in for free. questions. Thank you very much. Great. Well, we really can't wait to get started and uh look forward to working with man. This is I appreciate your time. Nice to meet you. Good job. Thank you so much. Thank you. You wrote the notes for me. I got Thank you, Ryan. Ryan and Scott when you stood up. I saw we kind of got this uniform thing going. So, Chad, nice job of offsetting us. Trying to break it up a little bit in the middle. We'll call it coordinator next time. Yeah. Looked over and jled at that. Wait back Um, so we have five. Uh, we can leave it open. It'll be fine. Leave it. Oh, they're they're still standing out there. Okay, we'll give them a few minutes. Yeah,
053that's fine. make it cheaper. Yeah, that's fine. That's Sorry, I didn't understand what you're saying. Okay, so we have the five. Um, Kathy, I won't I won't say her last name because I don't think I can pronounce it properly. Pezowski. Is that what it is? Peas. I think so. So, we had her, she was our first presentation um a couple days ago. We have um executive searches, we have Educational Leadership Solutions, we have uh School Exec Connect, which we heard tonight, and we have HYA, which we heard last. So, I guess we'll go ahead and open up for discussion um on thoughts. We we could take if you want, we can take it one by one. start with first or if you just want to share what you thought about all of them or who
054your top are. I can share my top two were Kathy and the educational leadership solutions. Um I thought Kathy was pretty personable. I thought she offered a lot of things that you know they all offered a lot of things that they'll do. I just feel like like she was be right there with us and walk us through everything. Um I did really like the educational leadership solution as well. Um, they have like the two-year guarantee. Um, I felt they were personal as well. I really like that they would do the mentorship or the coaching for a year, which I thought was a great add-on for them. I like the IASB just because they work with you. They're the least expensive. Um, they were my top. I think School Executive Connect was my top the first
055guys to um short to the point. They beat around the bush. They all do the same thing. Why go into it? But yeah, I mean I thought HYA was very pricey. I mean, yeah. just under $30,000. Yes. So, I mean, that kind of puts them out just on that alone, just, you know, talking about everything. I'm sorry. Oh, I said thought the HA was just a little out of touch. They were talking about everything about their their business, but not what they actually do. Yeah, I don't I mean I I kind of align with Scott on that. I mean, he focused on their brick and mortar building and their IT department and a lot of that stuff, which kind of leads into I mean, if they're not as nimble, that explains why they have more
056of a higher price point. Oh, it it it seemed to actually my way of I I kind of agree, Chad. My way of my takeaway was they were trying to explain why they were the most expensive. Yeah. you know, um, we've got we've got this overhead, you know, in in other words, this this is why this is why we need this. And I mean, there there is a validity to that. There are there are certain companies that cost more than others because they have higher cost structures, but are they going to do that much better of a job for us is the question. I can't see that whole package, everything I said. The only thing that actually I can follow is this just the structure of what they do. It just replicates what everybody else
057does. I I think the um I think the thing with HYA that um I had a hard time getting around other than the cost um was that they weren't particularly forthcoming at least in their presentation about um um guarantees around recruitment. I felt like we had to tease that out of them a little bit whereas everybody else was really direct. That was the one thing I agree with Jeff. Uh the school exec connect gentleman would be too. I mean the fact that I just certainly appreciated their presentation and the owner and it's and and they led with the guarantees. They have the longest retention. Their retention actually was longer than theirs. Their success percentage was higher and um they really focused on the right fit and retention. I mean the if I had to pick
058a second, it would be the educational leadership solutions. The Nick and Gary too would probably be mine. You know, Chad, I think I um I agree. My the my top firm was School Executive Connect. I felt like um they they understood us. their references or similar districts that um they've done placements for um were districts I I looked at and said, "Okay, that that seems like a good fit. That feels compatible." Um I felt like they did they did their homework. I liked the um the aspects of them. Um I mean, they were very upfront with guarantees. I liked that many of them talked about training superintendent, but um I I liked what they had to say there. And I liked how they led with real specifics. They said, "We're going to give you this
059many candidates. We're um and there's going to be a short list of this number." It, you know, it's for all we know, those numbers are pulled out of thin air, but when you hear those specifics, it gives you confidence. And I think from a cost standpoint, if you compare, they were 20 executive. Are you looking at school? Yeah. 165 plus 2200. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, I felt like I felt like you had, you know, just with costs, you had um HY on the high end, you probably had um ISB on the low end, and everybody else was kind of clumped together. And that's what's going to be my comment on the fees like that. They're not the, you know, they're not trying to be the cheapest, but they're not the high pie in the
060sky. And if you compare to an association, you know, I think they're an association they're driving off of probably some of their you know, the dues and stuff. So, they're able to provide a smaller price point, but my concern would be is how vested is the association in Illinois in our specific district as opposed to I just I felt like I connected more with school exe. I think they connect well with our community too. Those two guys seem a little older. Yeah. As for Hya. Yeah. Um connection, you know, I I felt like, you know, it I mean I'm I'm conflicted with the ISB. My understanding is um that's how we found you at Griffithk. Right. So you know it's all again I think that with all all these firms, you've all mentioned this, right?
061They're they're all going to do the same types of things. Sure. Right. The process is basically the same thing. You've got the difference. ISB is is the Illinois Association. So while they have a national aspect, they're really more local. They found us that was found through connections, right? And I think I I think I heard um you know from somebody else um you know if they really are conducting 25 concurrent searches, how do we know how much of a priority we are? Um you know that was that was something I actually did kind of like about um Kathy. I she seemed like she would be very committed um to us. On the other hand, if she's just one person and you know what, I'd want to know more about her workload and what else is
062on her plate because any one person can only do so much. Did she mention exactly what she what she was working on right now? I don't remember her saying if she was working with anybody else or doing any other I guess I guess we don't know that. It's just a concern that would come to mind. I thought that too with one person. I mean that's why she kept the cost lower. It's just her. So yeah. And at one point you could have that dedication that intimate that it's all she's all in for us. But then are there limitations compared to when you look at some of these other larger firms and the networks that they have and you know 67 people in this one and he mentioned there was several in the brick and mortise
063at the end. I did really I did really like Kathy's presentation of all the people we talked to. Um she was the one who held my attention the most. She definitely had the education voice to her. She had us um she had us engaged. Um the um the one the one thing that just bothered me a little bit with that presentation was um a number of references to us as a rural school district. And while that's partially true, it partially isn't. And um I I wouldn't want that to be, you know, maybe I'm reading into something too much, but I'm trying to get to um in my mind, which one of these five when they all have good qualifications are is the right fit. And when somebody kept saying rural, well, that's true for a
064part of us, we also are growing, right? And um I wouldn't want somebody to have their perception of what we are color who they're bringing us if that makes sense. So it's this is not easy for us for for those that are here tonight and those at home. Um one thank you for joining us. If you if it's difficult to follow, we apologize. Um we we saw three three firms on on was it Tuesday night? Monday night. Um and that's who we're speaking about them and then the two that you heard tonight. So just so everyone's aware when we're speaking about Kathy, she was our our first presenter on for this. She was fantastic. Um and then we heard from IASB which was our second presenter. And then we heard from Educational Leadership Services. Um,
065and then tonight we we heard from School Exec Connect and HYA. And as you can tell, we're we're a little bit split. Like we all we all liked each different firms for different reasons. Um, so from what I'm hearing right now from everyone, we have Kathy as a number one for at least one board member. IASB is a as a number one for a board member. No mean. Okay. Sorry, I misunderstood that one. And then we have school exec connect which it sounds like one for me one for and for you. Yeah they're they're they're my number one as well and I'll talk about what I thought about that one that's yours as well. Okay. One thing I loved about School Exec Connect tonight was their guarantee. Um, back my notes real quick, their their
066retention rate is really hard to argue with, right? When we're in this for a long haul and we really need a superintendent that's going to be with us for for a long time. That it's hard to argue with that. Their price isn't isn't um over the top by any consideration. And I did love I think somebody else said it their their guarantee and then also, you know, not to to recruit. Um, so that's kind of where I'm at. So, we have quite a few. Morgan, what do you Well, I I mean, I was late, so I didn't get to really see them, but, um, I trust you guys, you know, you guys feel really strongly about them. I'm with you right there. Um, anybody ready to make a motion or anything? So, it sounds like
067from what I hear, we already have consensus on school exec. All right. I need a motion and a second to approve school exec connects as the superintendent search firm. So moved. Second. And can I have a roll call, please? Hurst. Yes. Ma, yes. Papis, yes. Dugan, yes. Gorman, yes. Wawson, yes. Motion passes. All right. At this time, we're going to adjourn our open session and move into a close session. Um, I need a motion, a second. Second, and a roll call, please. I apologize. Yes. Dugan, yes. Orman, yes. Hurst. Yes. Wson. Yes.