With an advertising campaign that will include a $5,000 job posting in the New York Times, Metuchen will soon begin publicity efforts for its search for a new high school principal.
Beginning in November, Metuchen will put job postings for the position in newspapers including the New York Times and the Star-Ledger and will advertise the position at colleges and universities in both New York and New Jersey, said schools superintendent Terri Sinatra at last week’s Board of Education (BOE) meeting.
“We are looking at doing the advertisement in November,” Sinatra said. “We will list the specific qualifications [we want], and put in a description of the community and the high school. We have identified a number of associations, an educational newsletter, the New York Times, the Star-Ledger, certain online websites, and Columbia University [Teacher's College] (wiki) where I have a networking system. Then we are looking for December to be the collection of the information on candidates, though we could extend that deadline.”
After advertising the position, the district will then interview candidates, and as part of the process will ask for a portfolio of information including a resume, a list of professional accomplishments, and references.
“We will also ask for any other things they think would support the job qualifications we will have provided,” Sinatra said. “We would also ask for a writing sample. In the past, we have given people two types of writing samples, one on the spot and one they could research on their own. The Board of Education will be involved all along the way.”
Sinatra has said that the selection process should be completed by April 1, 2010, with the new principal formally starting July 1.
However, exactly how and when the BOE would interview candidates this time around was a focus of some debate at last week’s meeting. Some board members want to follow the same general procedure as before, while others want to see resumes of each candidate right from the beginning of the process.
Board members Devra Golbe, Dan Benderly, Ben Small, and Fran Brennan are in favor of following a similar procedure as the one used for the selection of Campbell School Principal Florence Carter, while board members Rose DeVries and Jackie Gibson want the board to help directly review candidates right from the outset by doing things such as reviewing resumes and sitting in on initial interviews.
Both sides offered reasoning for their differing points of view.
“I have thought about this for a long time, and I think we should leave the hiring process to the professionals in our district,” said board member Devra Golbe. “I don’t think [the board] has the expertise to hire a high school principal. What I know from hiring in my own field is that it is not easy. My preference is to let the staff do their jobs because I think they know what they are doing. I think our superintendent has put together teams of people in the past who have done a great job of filling vacancies. When the superintendent brings a few candidates to the board we will say yes or no at that time.”
“The other thing that concerns me is the interview process,” Golbe said. “In a good interview, you have to move the candidate off his prepared schpheel to find out what he is really about. I don’t think I, or most people, have the expertise to do that. Even attending an interview silently would be counter-productive, and the candidates would be less frank and comfortable if there are more people in the room, particularly if those people are not professional educators. Our educators will also be more guarded in those conversations.”
“We recently went through a hiring process for [Campbell School] principal,” said Benderly. “I don’t see any reason to deviate from that procedure. The procedure we followed for Mrs. Carter was that the administration went through the process with the paper screening… and we set certain criteria and characteristics. [Superintendent Sinatra] brought us three very good candidates, and together we chose from those finalists. I don’t see any reason we should change from that established procedure. You look at… the hires Mrs. Sinatra has made, I would say we are pretty happy with them as a whole. I don’t see any reason to change at this point what seems to be working.”
“We need to have a broad sweeping search,” said Small. “The administration should do the selection of the candidates based on that pool. The board should be involved in interviewing the finalists, not the initial 15 to 20. We have had a number of discussions including the Superintendent’s Forum, phone calls, email, walking throughout the town in learning from the public as to what they want. The public’s involvement should be limited to where it has been thus far, but we should incorporate that into what we have already gathered. I think we are very fortunate that we have so many people who are so interested, and we are fortunate enough to have an extremely competent school administration.”
Small also said that the board had researched 60 other school districts around New Jersey to see how they conducted their principal selection processes.
“Based on what other 60 other districts are doing, we are not veering from what most towns are doing,” he said. “We have found that the administration, board, and in some cases, PTO presidents were involved in the selection committee, but they did not incorporate feedback from the board of education and the public like we have done in these open forums.”
During the screening process in these districts, “maybe one or two included parents,” while during the interview process, “10 out of 60 included parents, and they were mainly PTO Presidents,” said Business Administrator Michael Harvier.
But board members Rose DeVries and Jackie Gibson had differing opinions.
DeVries wants to see the resumes of all the candidates considered as well as be able to sit in on interviews from an earlier stage in the process, not just in the final group of three or five.
“I believe we should have the ability to see all the resumes of the candidates being interviewed,” DeVries said. “If we get 100 candidates, if it is narrowed down to 15 to 20 people, then that is not an unrealistic request to read the resumes of all the people. That will give us a lot of information on how [Superintendent Sinatra] narrows it down. It will help me see how the process went and how the decision was made between the candidates. The three finalists aren’t enough. I don’t just want to see the last three resumes and then announce the best one. I want to know how we got to these three people and how all the other people were eliminated. We should read all the resumes of the people being interviewed because then our vote will be an educated one.”
“My personal opinion is that I would like to see board members in from the very beginning,” Gibson said. “I would be more comfortable with a few board members on the [interview] committee. It is a process of discussing it together for what is an appropriate choice. You can’t do that by giving someone instructions since what they think you meant and what you actually meant may not end up being the same thing.”
Final decisions on the principal selection process and the board’s precise level of involvement will be decided as the year goes on.
“We have plenty of time to decide, as we are at the beginning of the process,” said board president Terry Kohl. “Our ongoing role in the process will continue to be discussed at our meetings.”
