Mount Vernon School board is deciding between two search firms for their new superintendent search to replace Dr. Greg Batenhorst, retiring at the end of the 2024 school year. Batenhorst has led the district for five years.
Seven search firms were asked in July to submit proposals for leading the search, with five doing so. The board selected Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates and Ray and Associates as the two firms they wanted presentations from.
Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates
Ted Blaesing of Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates (HYA), noted that HYA has more than 100 associates on their nationwide network.
The firm has a national reach with a local focus, he said, and would include candidates outside Iowa. In addition, it does aggressive recruiting, gives regular updates to school boards, would hold up to 20 focus groups, and includes incidental travel costs in its fees.
The firm has done 50 searches in 10 states, ranging from small schools such as Mount Vernon to large schools such as Jacksonville, Fla., with 130,000 students.
HYA has carried out 12 successful searches near Mount Vernon, including in districts that are significantly larger than Mount Vernon’s such as West Des Moines, Ames, Ankeny and Sioux Falls, Iowa, and Rochester, Minn.
HYA’s placements have been diverse, with 49 percent women and 28 percent Hispanic/African American. Fifty-three percent have been candidates of color.
The firm’s search process consists of four parts: holding a planning meeting with the school board to determine the steps and key dates for the search, getting 24 hours of stakeholder input over three days of meetings, compiling a leadership profile report of all the information from the meetings, and defining the district’s desired characteristics of the new superintendent.
Steps in the process would include: holding an open town hall meeting, meeting with the school board, holding focus groups, key leaders of the district holding individual interviews with the candidates, preparing a leadership profile report of desired characteristics in the new superintendent, and the school board saying what they want in the candidate.
The engagement phase would take four to six weeks in September and October. It would include holding a planning meeting with the school board to set out detailed steps and key dates in the search process.
The recruitment phase would take eight to ten weeks from October through December. It would include HYA making calls to get recommendations of candidates for the job, calling the candidates to pique their interest, posting the job opening on HYA’s website–which gets 24,000 hits a month, Blaesing said, providing the district a list of questions concerning the district’s needs to ask the candidates, face-to-face interviews if possible, and reference checks.
The selection phase would take three to four weeks in January and February 2024. It would use the question list to conduct interviews so all the candidates would respond to the same questions. This process would allow the field to be narrowed easily and a preferred candidate to be selected, Blaesing said.
The transition phase to a new superintendent would begin in July 2024. It would include the firm meeting with the chosen superintendent, giving that person some guidance and a plan, and doing what the board members would want the firm to do with them.
Fees for the search would include $13,500 for the search, plus an optional $2,000 if a stakeholder survey was also done.
HYA would continue the search until the board is satisfied.
The firm would also conduct a new search if the chosen candidate would leave the job for any reason within the first two years on the job.
Ray and Associates Inc.Molly Schwarzhoff, president, and Kathy Schoenfelder, vice president, of Ray and Associates Inc. noted that their firm is a nationwide firm that has been in business since 1975, making them the oldest search firm.
They have the largest pool of candidates and have completed 1,600 searches, including the search for Mount Vernon’s current superintendent, Greg Batenhorst.
Their goal is to “find the best fit for the person and the district,” they said. To do that, they go through a rigorous hiring process for their clients, including drawing on more than 6,000 school administrators in their database.
They will meet the needs of the district and do what the district wants so they can find the best fit for the school district, they said.
To do that, they will meet with individual board members, hold small group and large group stakeholder meetings, and do whatever the board wants, in-person or virtual.
Their fee includes as many groups as the board wants to meet with.
They will send out 31 quality assessments to the district and to community stakeholders to find out what the school district wants in a hire.
They will work with the board on where they want to advertise, and will recruit top candidates by personally reaching out to them.
Advertising will cost about $12,000 to $15,000, including educational advertising venues and social media channels.
They will screen the candidates and do extensive background checks and internet checks.
Their number one way to recruit superintendents is by word of mouth, as they get the top-tier candidates through their reputation and referrals, they said.
They will screen the candidates to get eight to twelve top ones that are matched to what the school board is looking for.
They will then research them on the internet, doing a deep dive into them and checking their references.
They will also have the candidates do a video answering questions the firm poses.
Finally, they will do professional background checks on the top three candidates.
Since the new school board will be seated Nov. 14, they said the search firm’s ideal timeline is to recruit for a new superintendent soon after that–over at least the Thanksgiving break, and make the new hire by the end of December or beginning of January 2024.
Superintendent search firms present proposals to MV school board
Ann Gruber-Miller
[email protected]
September 7, 2023