Superintendent search committee gathers feedback from community

The Peninsula School District opened its Purdy facility on Monday to interested members of the public and its teachers at all levels for a two-day series of give and take discussions on the process of selecting the district’s new superintendent.

Mark J. Venn of Northwest Leadership Associates headed discussions with PSD teachers on the process to hire the new superintendent by spring break to allow them to be fully oriented prior to taking the reins on July 1.

Simultaneously, in a separate room, Dr. Wayne Robertson, also of NLA, gathered information from Key Peninsula citizens attending a search focus group.

Each session lasted about an hour before other groups participated in the process over Monday and Tuesday.

Marilyn Wilson, executive assistant to the superintendent, provided a link to the website https://psd401.net/, which provides data pertaining to the search.

“There is a survey attached that we hope will receive many responses to help NLA in the selection process,” Wilson said.

The meetings were for focus groups to help the NLA know the characteristics the staff and community are looking for in the next superintendent, Wilson said.

Groups included students, teachers, parents and community leaders.

To Brian McLean, chairman of the Students of Distinction program and whose young son attends Evergreen Elementary, “(PSD) is doing its part to involve different areas of our community — teachers, neighbors, student leaders — in order to focus on what’s important to us as the school board considers qualities it wants in a successor for superintendent. Tonight’s exercise highlighted the outstanding aspects of the district and identified a few areas for improvement. We hope the search firm and the board take that information into account as they hire a new leader for our schools.”

“Dr. Robertson asked us to talk about strengths of our school district, challenges, and what attributes we’d like to see in our new superintendent,” said Susan Paganelli, director of the Key Peninsula Partnership for a Healthy Community. “Our group was very positive, which gives me hope that this will be a fruitful experience for our schools.”

“Our schools are a critical and valuable part of our community, so the superintendent selection process is important,” she added. “I’m glad that members of the community are able to take part in this process and hope anyone who has an interest takes the opportunity to be involved.”

Key Peninsula’s Sara Thompson felt her group “is seeking a strong leader, but one with flexibility to continue and possibly expand the community collaborations. Someone with an education background; a willingness to be an active and visible presence in the community and an ability to tell the story of success.”

For more information, visit https://psd401.net/index.php/superintendent-search and https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/236F28L.

This story was originally published January 28, 2016 at 10:54 AM with the headline "Superintendent search committee gathers feedback from community."