At their regular meeting on Monday, March 28, Deer Park’s Board of Directors shared appreciation for the over 400 individuals who participated in the superintendent search survey. Receiving such a significant body of information and feedback from stakeholders throughout the district and community was immensely helpful in clarifying and solidifying the key characteristics and attributes Deer Park needs and wants in a new leader.
Input collected via the survey has enabled the board to move forward with confidence, understanding there is close alignment between the board’s priorities for hiring a new superintendent and the priorities shared by district staff and families.
In the course of their meeting on Monday, March 28, the board announced they were not pursuing an interim and had focused their attention on the two remaining options:
- move forward with a selection from a short list of identified candidates, or;
- hire an outside agency to conduct a full search.
The board recessed from their regular meeting and went into Executive Session to further consider the qualifications of potential candidates.
After their Executive Session, the board re-entered their regular meeting. A motion was made to set aside hiring an external search agency and focus on a thorough vetting and potential selection of a specific candidate. After clarifying that the board would still have the ability to fall back on the other options should they ultimately decide not to proceed with selection, the motion to proceed with a "direct hire" passed unanimously.
The board will continue to work through the process in the coming days and, at this time, hopes to take action on a selection at the regularly scheduled board meeting on April 10.