OPS Board sets superintendent search process

“The most important job that you have right now is to hire a new superintendent.”

And with that, Sheri Allen, a consultant with TeamWorks International, kicked off a workshop designed to help members of the Owatonna School Board set a path for future leadership.

Allen is not only a former principal at Owatonna High School and former superintendent of Mankato Public Schools, she also lives in Owatonna.

“I really want to take you through a process of questions to help you get ideas of where you want to go next,” she said. “There is a new opportunity for you and for the district; somebody new, with a new perspective, might really help with the next step.”

The first goal of the workshop, said Board Chair Mark Sebring, is to decide “what we want the next eight years to look like,” referring to the amount of time current Superintendent Jeff Elstad has spent leading the district.

He announced he will step down from the role June 30.

“We are a governing board,” Sebring said. “We don’t get into the minutiae – we set big, lofty, very audacious goals, then we hire the right people to go out and get that done.”

Board members brainstormed some of those goals, including continuing to be a “destination location” for staff; recruiting and retaining staff; returning to the basics of student achievement; and the necessity of finding and teaching kids where they are, then preparing them to become lifelong learners.

“The education industry does a really nice job of teaching kids how to light fires instead of filling buckets,” Sebring said, paraphrasing poet W.B. Yeats.

“When I walked the halls of this school, our little brains were buckets, and teachers poured stuff into it, then I forgot it,” he said. “Kids need to walk out with skill sets and capabilities.”

“And the fire to go learn,” added board member Ron Kubista.

The next step was to name characteristics they’d like to see in a district leader.

“The characteristics and skills that you want in your next superintendent should align with the priorities you have as a board,” Allen said.

Clarity of purpose is important to both the district and the incoming superintendent, she said.

In addition to the basics of accessibility, approachability and communication, the group found its focus: instructional leadership, to inspire the community, to inspire leaders, trust, and staff development.

Trust is important to new board member Andrea Van Gelder, who said “if you have the trust of the people you’re working with, even if they’re uncomfortable with something moving forward, they’re going to be more likely to do it.”

Still, it was difficult, said board member Jolayne Mohs, “because I value the work that Jeff has done, and so it’s hard for me to articulate that and not be like, ‘well, just (do) what Jeff did.’”

That’s OK, Allen said.

“You want to acknowledge the really good things you don’t want to lose,” she said, “but what’s really important to move forward, so that you expand?”

It was a sentiment Mohs repeated at the Owatonna School Board meeting five days later, when the group approved the process it will use.

 “It was a thoughtful way to start,” Kubista said of the workshop, “to realign our priorities, to realign what we want for our future, then talk about characteristics.”

The process will begin with an invitation to potential internal candidates; four employees of the district have their superintendent license.

“We felt it was in our best interest to start with the local,” Sebring said, “and we’ll initiate (the search) that way.”

Initial interviews of internal candidates are set for Feb. 13, with follow-up interviews scheduled for Feb. 18.

If an internal candidate search is unsuccessful, the district will open it to external candidates.