The Columbus Municipal School District board of trustees tried to involve the community in its lengthy search to find a superintendent last year.
The Mississippi School Board Association recognized that effort — so much so that they asked CMSD board members to present to school districts at the MSBA annual conference in Jackson Wednesday.
Board members were excited to talk with representatives of other school districts about the superintendent search process and the importance of involving the community in selecting the head of the district.
“It’s validation that we stuck to our core beliefs of doing things the right way,” board president Jason Spears said. “The whole process has made our board stronger.”
CMSD started its search for a superintendent February 2018 after the termination of former superintendent Philip Hickman. The first thing the board did was bring in MSBA representatives to hold meetings with stakeholders — including one for parents and the wider community and one just for CMSD teachers and staff. MSBA compiled reports of the stakeholders’ feedback from those meetings.
Once the CMSD board began accepting applications, they narrowed the applicant pool of 19 to five candidates, and then to three finalists. The board presented the final three candidates to the community in a public interview setting in May last year before hiring Cherie Labat.
This level of community involvement set a precedent other districts should use, MSBA superintendent search consultant Tommye Henderson said.
“The first distinction is the use of the stakeholders’ reports,” Henderson said. “The newspaper printed those. Transparency was one of the goals the board had, and to involve the community and their voices. They had the courage to print it, even though there were some negative things being printed. No other district has used the stakeholder reports to that extent.”
After the public interviews, the board took a community vote for a new superintendent. The following day, the board of trustees interviewed each candidate one more time before announcing the new head of the district.
Spears said the process of finding a new leader for the district was exhausting during the nearly five-month search, but added MSBA’s support was critical.
“(MSBA) was very instrumental in helping us,” Spears said. “It’s a process I don’t want to go through again any time soon.”
At Wednesday’s conference, Labat spoke to school districts about how it felt on the applicant side and the encouragement she felt from the district.
“I respected the integrity and rigor of the process and that they were very thorough in the process,” Labat said. “It made me more attracted to the position, not to say it wasn’t stressful. It made me feel like they were going to do a thorough job of picking the right candidate for the position.”
Involvement in the community is something both Spears and Labat expect to grow within the district.
“We try to be transparent about what’s going well and things we need to improve upon,” Labat said. “It’s important to get feedback. It is our community and our school district. We need the input of the community and the friendly city to move the school district to the next level.”
During the course of the public interviews, The Dispatch printed information about each candidate. Both Henderson and Labat said the printed documentation helped educate and inform the community of the ongoings within the district. Labat said board members distributed copies of The Dispatch’s coverage of the search to other districts present at Wednesday’s conference.
Henderson added the route CMSD took with the public is something that has already benefited school districts in their own searches.
“We try to give the other districts examples of what former districts have done,” Henderson said. “We just did a search in Canton School district. They did a public forum also. It was formatted similar to Columbus. It was because they wanted to let their community see the finalist, just like Columbus did.”
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 41 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.