School board nears end of superintendent search
The board has narrowed down the seven applicant pool to three finalists. Those finalists are visiting the district this week, meeting staff and fielding questions from both the board and the public.
The Albany County School Board will soon choose the district’s next leader. The school board trustees have narrowed the field of candidates down to three; the trustees will interview each on separate nights this week, starting tonight.
The board will debate who to hire in an executive session next week, and are expected to announce the next superintendent sometime in May.
“Hiring the superintendent is one of the most — if not the most — important tasks that the school board undertakes,” School Board Chair Janice Marshall said. “The trustees have deliberated a great deal to arrive at these finalists. Now it is time to engage each applicant with the Albany County community.”
Each candidate is visiting the district this week, touring schools, meeting with staff and principals and taking part in a public forum from 6-7 p.m. on their respective days.
The three finalists and their campus visit dates are as follows:
Tuesday, April 26: David Barker, current Superintendent of Fremont County School District No. 1
Wednesday, April 27: John Goldhart, current Superintendent of Manchester School District in New Hampshire
Thursday, April 28: Charlotte Patterson, current interim senior director of diversity, equity and inclusion of Tucson Unified School District in Arizona
Following current Superintendent Jubal Yennie’s resignation announcement earlier this year, the board launched a search for his replacement.
That search has not been without its hiccups.
Initially, the board hired the search firm McPherson and Jacobson to find and recruit candidates for the position. Less than a month later, the board rescinded that appointment and hired the Wyoming School Boards Association instead.
That decision was discussed during an executive session, so just why the switch was made is unclear.
Marshall would not elaborate on the board’s decision to switch search firms.
“I’ll just say that after some preliminary work, we decided to go a different direction,” she said. “We’ve had a great experience with WSBA.”
WSBA Executive Director Brian Farmer gave the Albany County School Board an update on the ongoing search during a work session April 6. He said he has been involved with nearly 50 superintendent searches during his career — and that the current environment in the country and schools has made recruitment difficult.
“This year has been observedly different from every other year that I’ve done superintendent searches,” Farmer said. “We are seeing far fewer applications. That’s not novel to Wyoming. That’s a nationwide trend. And we’re also seeing the majority of applications coming very close to the deadline. Now that’s kind of normal, but we’re seeing that trend even more so than usual.”
Albany County School District No. 1 also requires its superintendent to hold a Ph.D. All three of the finalists meet this requirement, but the requirement’s presence likely shrinks the pool of potential candidates, Farmer told the board.
“It is no doubt that the qualification requirement in Albany County is going to limit the number somewhat,” he said. “We do require the doctoral degree here in school administration – that is by policy. That is going to limit things a little bit.”
Still, Farmer estimated the district would see about 12 to 18 applications. Instead, the district received seven.
“That was a little lower than last time we did a search,” Marshall said. “There’s a lot of factors in that. The climate for education, the tough job that it’s been to be a superintendent for the last couple of years — there are a lot of factors in why we didn’t get a larger candidate pool.”
Regardless, Marshall is hopeful the public will participate in the community forums this week. Questions had to be submitted ahead of time, but anyone is free to attend the forums at Laramie Middle School, or stream them via YouTube.
“The school board has approached the process of hiring a new superintendent with thoughtfulness and rigor,” Marshall says in a news release. “We have selected what we believe are the three best applicants to potentially lead our district. Now, we look forward to seeing how they interact with our community, learning more about them in person, and gathering feedback.”
The forums take place today, tomorrow and Thursday from 6-7 p.m. Each forum will be immediately followed by the candidate’s interview with the board. Those interviews, however, will take place in executive session.
The school board will meet May 4 to debate which of the three finalists to hire, but that deliberation will also take place in executive session.