At the tail end of a seven-hour Wednesday night meeting, the Douglas County school board settled on a list of qualifications for superintendent candidates, with the board’s leaders expressing a desire for a candidate who could bring the district together while not having exact educational pedigrees.

The discussion began at around 10:45 p.m., several hours after public commenters largely criticized the board’s speedy process for hiring a replacement for former superintendent Corey Wise. As they debated what they wanted in a candidate, the board’s newly elected majority indicated they didn’t necessarily want a change of direction or goals for the district but rather a new administrator who could reunite a fractured county, achieve the board’s pre-existing priorities and help drive a successful mill levy effort.

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Earlier in the evening, the board had advanced a relatively swift timetable that will see finalists identified within a few weeks and a new superintendent announced as soon as sometime in the latter half of March. That drew criticism from the public and from the board’s three longer-serving members, who questioned that speed and why the public wasn’t being included more.

During that discussion, board member Susan Meek had asked in what direction the four newly elected officers wanted the new superintendent to take the district.

The question harkened back to the firing of Wise. When the board voted to terminate Wise earlier this month, board president Mike Peterson said the district needed “to move in another direction” and that voters wanted that shift, too. Fellow new board members Becky Myers and Christy Williams both echoed that sentiment, saying the community was unhappy with the district’s direction and wanted a change.

When the board took up debate about what qualities its new superintendent should have, its listed requirements included an understanding of “the direction the district is moving to.” Meek circled back to her previous question: What direction is that?

“I understand that (to be) a leader who has basically been tracking the trends in the district and the macro movement of where the district is going,” Peterson replied, “not specifically aligning to a specific vision.”

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“I’ve heard that we didn’t want the prior superintendent because we wanted to move the district in a difference direction, and we’re referring to the different direction here,” Meek said. “I think it would be really, really helpful and transparent to put on paper what the means.”

Peterson said in his mind, the district’s direction meant its current goals, albeit with a superintendent, he said, who was “actually pursuing” them.

Williams, the board’s vice president, said it was important for the board to get together to “dig deep” into the question of direction. But she, too, said it was about current goals. Fellow newcomer Kaylee Winegar added that she wanted a candidate who meets those goals, who could bring together a divided community, and who recognized the priority of a mill levy and can help that effort succeed.

Meek again circled back to Wise.

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“We let go the prior superintendent to move in a different direction, but the direction we’re moving in is the same direction with the same ends,” Meek said. “I just want to be clear so that we don’t have an expectation we’re going to hire a new superintendent and then as soon as they’re hired, we re-write all of the ends and come up with new direction.”

Peterson replied that the district’s current mission, ends and vision were priorities, and that he felt Wise wasn’t effectively pursuing them.

Ultimately, at board member David Ray’s suggestion, the board struck the language requiring candidates to know “the direction the district is moving to” and replaced it by saying the candidate must understand the board’s ends, mission and vision.

While Meek’s questions kicked off the discussion, much of the job qualifications were accepted without debate or with minor, uncontroversial adjustments: Ideal applicants should be transparent, effective communicators, have integrity, value diversity and inclusion, and have “an unwavering moral compass.” In contrast with much of the board’s recent communications, the discussion was civil and, despite the late hour, relatively speedy.

Where there were further sticking points between the board’s four newly elected leaders and their three longer-serving peers came on certain, resume-level qualifications for the position. The description requires a master’s degree, albeit not necessarily in education. Ray, who was board president until after the November election, advocated that the master’s degree be related to education. Meek added that specialty felt important, given that the position was to be a top educator.

But Peterson said he didn’t want to limit the applicant pool. Myers and Winegar agreed that while they preferred an education-related master’s degree, they were comfortable with an administration degree generally. 

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A similar debate unfolded as the board discussed whether candidates should have classroom experience. Ray and Meek again advocated they should, with the other board members reiterating that they didn’t want to limit their candidate pool. Ultimately, the qualifications maintain that applicants should have experience in education, either as an educator or as someone who has worked “closely with educators as a school leader.”

Erin Kane, the executive director of a Douglas County charter school and a presumptive candidate that both Peterson and Williams said they supported, has a master’s degree in public administration, according to her bio on hers school’s website. She helped found the charter school, American Academy, and served as interim superintendent for Douglas County from 2016 to 2018.

With relatively few disagreements and adjustments, the board’s seven members voted unanimously to approve the qualifications for the job. They then moved to consider 20 questions Peterson had drafted to submit to all candidates. 

Ultimately, though, the board dropped that idea: They decided that instead, the board members would each submit two questions to Peterson that would be asked of applicants. Members would then submit two more questions later on, for finalists.

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