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The Mountain View Whisman school board is expected to take a vote tonight to formally hire a search firm that will be tasked with finding the district’s new superintendent.
At a meeting last week, the school board members interviewed three potential firms and unanimously expressed a preference for Leadership Associates, a firm that has conducted searches for nearby districts including the Los Altos School District and Sequoia Union High School District.
Leadership Associates has also worked in the past with the Mountain View Los Altos High School District and Palo Alto Unified School District, although not to hire their most recent superintendents.
Mountain View Whisman’s board is expected to vote to approve a $27,500 contract with Leadership Associates at a meeting tonight, Jan. 30. The open session will begin at 6 p.m.
The school district is searching for its next leader following the resignation in November of Ayindé Rudolph, who had led the district since 2015. Rudolph left as the district faced controversies on multiple fronts, including community outcry over certain spending decisions and an impending state audit. Rudolph said in a public letter that his decision to resign followed a “recent health scare,” and that he would be spending more time with his family.
Kevin Skelly has been leading the district on an interim basis for the past several months. Starting next week, former Los Altos School District Superintendent Jeff Baier is expected to take over in the interim role for the rest of the school year.
The Mountain View Whisman school board is looking to hire a permanent superintendent, who would start work over the summer and be in place for the start of the new school year in August.
At a Jan. 23 meeting, the board interviewed representatives from three search firms: Leadership Associates, Education Leadership Services and McPherson & Jacobson. The district originally planned to also hear from Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, but that firm withdrew from the process ahead of the meeting, Skelly said.
After hearing from all three firms and discussing their references, the board each wrote down a ranked list of their preferences, which they handed to Skelly to review. Skelly reported that all five board members had put Leadership Associates in the top spot.
Board member Ana Reed pointed to Leadership Associates’s local experience as a major factor in her decision.
“I really felt that having somebody familiar with our very distinct district, but also the neighboring districts that are also looking (for superintendents), helped to sway me,” Reed said.
The cost to hire Leadership Associates was substantially higher than the other two firms, who each proposed charging roughly $17,000. A Leadership Associates representative said that their $27,500 price tag was “all inclusive.” The contract calls for it to include things like conducting background checks, gathering community input and attending all board meetings.
If the new superintendent leaves in less than two years, the contract with Leadership Associates states that the firm would conduct a “new targeted search” for no additional cost except for advertising and overhead. For that clause to be invoked, a majority of the school board members have to remain the same, and the board has to have established annual goals for the superintendent and conducted certain performance evaluations.
In addition to voting on the contract at tonight’s meeting, the board is also expected to work with Leadership Associates to nail down a timeline for the search, as well as to discuss which groups to reach out to for input and what characteristics the board wants to see in the candidates.
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27.5 sounds very cheap. That’s probably not evening going to be 10 percent of the new person’s base pay.
After so many complaints, I look forward to seeing the search firm convince the public to pay the new person’s LESS than the previous guy. Because of course, who doesn’t want to get paid less for the same job?
Ramirez. Go back under your bridge
I think that’s offensive to the people in our communities that live under bridges, especially by Stevens Creek.
I’m not wrong, am I?