Nineteen people have applied to be Juneau School District’s next superintendent, according to search firm McPherson & Jacobson.
The job posting to replace outgoing Superintendent Frank Hauser was open for more than three weeks before closing Thursday. The search firm will use data from surveys and stakeholder meetings to narrow down the candidates.
Meanwhile, the Juneau School Board is continuing to collect public feedback.
Consultants met with various groups inside and outside of the district. Board President Britteny Cioni-Haywood said the board is heavily relying on a community survey to understand what people want to see in a superintendent.
“We’re not going to catch everyone in one-on-one meetings, and so that default is back to that survey, that then anyone in the community can have their voice heard in the process by utilizing that tool,” she said.
As of Thursday afternoon, there had been more than 300 responses to the survey, said board member David Noon, who acts as a liaison between the consultants and the board.
Within the district, search firm consultants met with several stakeholder groups, including teachers, district staff, administrators, student governments, and site council parents. They also met with the University of Alaska Southeast, U.S. Coast Guard and Juneau’s delegation of state lawmakers.
The search firm plans to hold another meeting with the district’s site councils on Thursday, Feb. 12 at 6 p.m. Only a handful of parents attended the first one on Tuesday.
Noon said the board will conduct multiple interviews with finalists before selecting a new superintendent. He said there will be some type of public forum with finalists for the position, but the board hasn’t decided on a date or specific format yet.
“As a board, we haven’t talked about what that was going to look like,” he said. “It can take any shape that we want it to.”According to the timeline for the superintendent search on the district’s website, the board plans to select a new superintendent in the second week of March. The new superintendent is expected to begin on July 1.
