At the October 13 Harwood Unified Union School District (HUUSD) Board meeting, Dr. John Gratto of the national superintendent search firm McPherson and Jacobson discussed the timeline and process for searching for the new district superintendent. Superintendent Brigid Nease will be stepping down at the end of this school year. McPherson and Jacobson will do a nationwide search for the replacement. Gratto said, based on past searches the firm has conducted in Vermont, he anticipated approximately one-third of the candidates to be Vermonters.
The timeline Gratto laid out had posting the job November 29 with a deadline to apply by January 3, 2022. The board will meet again with McPherson and Jacobson on January 5 to discuss the candidates. The board opted to designate a subcommittee to determine who to interview and conduct the interviews. The final decision will be made by the board as a whole.
McPherson and Jacobson is developing a brochure to inform and attract potential candidates to the community and school district. The next step is to create an online stakeholder survey to involve community members in determining the district’s values and the qualifications the board/community would look for in a candidate. The questions Gratto recommended asking were 1. What makes our community a good place to live? 2. What makes HUUSD a good school district? 3. What issues in the district does a new superintendent need to know about? 4. What skills, qualities and characteristics does a new superintendent need to be successful?
Gratto recommended collecting survey results by November 11 and finalizing the job description using the survey results by November 17. He said he anticipates identifying the top candidate by February 2022.
