Colby to start search for superintendent
The Colby School Board discussed the steps that would need to be taken to find a new superintendent at Monday night’s meeting. The process will require several months of planning and interviewing and may be one of the most important undertakings that this board will face, as the individual chosen for this position could be managing the district for years to come.
Current superintendent Dr. Steve Kolden will be retiring from his position and he wants to make sure that the board is well equipped to handle finding his replacement. As such, he and board president Bill Tesmer put together a general timeline for the board and explained the typical procedure for finding and hiring a new superintendent.
The process usually begins by creating a “request for proposals” or RFPs and sending these documents to different agencies and firms that will assist with the hiring process. These companies will connect the board to potential candidates and help them through the interview process.
There is a difference in what certain firms will provide in terms of overall recruitment strategy, and that is something that Kolden and Tesmer encouraged the board to consider when deciding how they would like to proceed.
“Almost every school in the state is a member of WASB,” Kolden stated, referring to the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, which is an option that the board can consider utilizing for this search, “And then you have other search firms that are not as connected, and they go out and actively recruit. They’ll help you determine ‘what does the community want, what do you want,’ and they’ll go and look for those people and invite them to apply. As opposed to someone like WASB, which is more passive. They will advertise, and they advertise well, but they count on the applicants coming to you.”
In addition to recruitment tactics, the board was asked to consider what else they may be looking for in a firm, such as cost, the experience of the agency, and their track record in finding candidates who stay in their position for extended periods of time.
“What’s the general cost of the process?” treasurer Dave Decker asked, looking for clarification on what range of prices the school district could be looking at for hiring one such firm.
“I asked someone from WASB, and they said that you can ask for more services or less,” vice president Cheryl Ploeckelman said, “so there’s a range of costs that might happen. But their ballpark is $13,000.”
“It’s going to be $10,000 to $15,000,” Kolden added.
While it was recommended to the board that they utilize a firm to assist with the hiring process, it is not required. However, Ploeckelman, who was on the board that hired Kolden, stated that using a firm greatly assists with multiple aspects of the procedure.
“You need a firm, for one thing, because they advertise and find a good fit,” she said. “But when you interview the candidates, there are so many things you can and can’t ask. And they will tell you what you can’t ask. They protect us.”
“And it’s been so long since we’ve been through it, and things have changed,” Tesmer added. “The whole search process has changed.”
The main objective for the board before the next meeting is to come up with what criteria they would like in a hiring firm and to use it to draft an RFP for approval. Then, the document can be sent out and the board can narrow down the firm candidates down to two or three before having them present some time in September. This timeline would hopefully result in a contract being established with a consultant by the end of October.
n The board received resignations from Corey Rutter, an elementary interventionist, and Dakota Singer, an elementary kindergarten teacher. They also consented to the transfer of Lisa Brill from the Title I department to LMC director and to the hire of Treva Brodhagen to replace Brill as a Title I reading teacher.
n The board discussed and approved a bid from Prairie Farms to be the milk provider for the district over the next school year. The price saw about a $.10 increase per unit, or about a 30 percent increase, over last year’s, but this was the only bid that was received. “A lot of it has to do with vendors, deliveries, and small schools, as well as gas prices,” Kolden said.
n The board approved an $11,000 quote for the installation of a long throw projector in the high school theater. The company, Arrow AV, estimates that the project would be $9,000, plus or minus 20 percent, so the quote would cover even the high end of the projected costs. This projector would be mounted from the ceiling and is capable of projecting to both the current, 4:3 screen and any future landscape-sized screen that may be installed. Kolden stated that this project could be done using ESSER funds.
