MSCS hires firm to conduct search, select finalists for superintendent
The search for the next superintendent of Memphis-shelby County Schools will be run by Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, an Illinois-based firm with 30 years of experience.
The search will cost at least $38,000, documents show.
The firm will be expected to produce finalists within the next few months, allowing the school board to select a new leader by the end of the school year in May. Recruitment of candidates is expected to begin at the end of February, the board said in a press release.
Board members voted unanimously to approved the recommendation Tuesday evening. The approval came as a contract approval announced through an evaluation committee update.
Although board chair Althea Greene had said the firm recommendation would be brought forth to the meeting, the item was treated as an add-on, or an item voted on by the board that was not part of the published agenda.
“We will bring the best candidates back,” Greene said in a presentation of the recommendation, reiterating a commitment to a transparent search. While all firms were “impressive,” Greene said, the firm’s cost, ability to commit to the set timeline and commitment to diversity brought the firm to the top.
Greene was one of three people who worked to select the firm, HYA, from a set of four applicants. Kenneth Walker, the district’s chief legal officer, and Quintin Robinson, the district’s recently appointed chief of human resources, worked with Greene to evaluate and select a firm.
Application materials say that evaluation committee should prioritize experience and qualifications in evaluating the firms and how well the application meets requirements. Worth less weight are references and financial stability.
Search firm selection not necessary public conversation, board chair says amid calls for transparency
During public comment Tuesday, a former school board candidate and former
district employee, Rachael Spriggs, acknowledged the heft of the task ahead, which she described magnified by the lack of a search in recent years. This search is the first search for a superintendent the district, as merged Memphis-shelby County Schools, has ever conducted.
“The question is are we moving in a way that is truly rebuilding the trust that has not existed for a while between the board and the general public, specifically regarding your essential duty to hire and hold a superintendent accountable,” Spriggs said.
Neither the school board nor MSCS have publicly shared the search firm application materials, though The Commercial Appeal has independently obtained them. The district recently said it would need until March 17 to supply the applications through a public records request filed Jan. 5. Neither the board nor the district shared the scorecard for determining the firm Tuesday.
Greene said board members on Friday received the scoring rubric and scorecard.
“We just didn’t want to release it publicly until we voted on it tonight,” Greene said. Asked why, Greene continued, “Why would we release something that the board hadn’t approved? So the vote was necessary tonight to approve that
contract.”
Asked about constituents who would want to issue public comment on the proposal, Greene said: “The board decides on the search firm, not the advisory committee, and not the public. I want to be real clear. The board decides on the search firm. We followed the procurement process, we provided that information to board members, now we will be able to provide it to, through open records, to anybody who requests that information. But it was not something that we needed to publicly have a conversation about before this body voted on it and decided that they agreed with the search firm.”
HYA has conducted superintendent searches in recent years for the following large school districts: Atlanta; Denver; Ft. Worth, Texas; Los Angeles; Montgomery County, Maryland; and Portland, Oregon, among others. In 2015, the group defended its work to The Tennessean.
Although the firm has come under fire in Nashville and elsewhere, HYA also has experience successfully placing hundreds of administrators nationwide.
Other applicants were Alma Advisory Group, GR Recruiting and Ray and Associates.
Asked by Chalkbeat Tennessee about some of the controversies associated with the firm, Greene said she was not aware, and that the evaluation group “went by what was submitted” then exited and stopped taking questions from press after the meeting.
In a presentation, Walker said the firm was selected on Jan. 20. The firm is expected to begin reviewing responses from community meetings and surveys sometime after Feb. 21.
While the contract approved by the board allows for optional costs of community engagement, Greene said: “We have already addressed community engagement. We don’t plan to go back and start having community meetings.”
MSCS board members announced a national search five months ago in August after terminating former superintendent Joris Ray and soon thereafter elevating chief financial officer Toni Williams to the interim superintendent position. The announcement was seen as a referendum on the board’s choice to abandon a national search in appointing Ray in April 2019.
And while Williams, upon her interim appointment, said she was not interested in the full-time job, she has since stopped taking that hard line.
Immediately after the board issued a vote on a search firm, Williams began a presentation touting some recent successes of the district and other status updates. While superintendent updates are a typical agenda item, the presentation was atypical in scope and description.
As part of the announcement, Williams said she would announce soon a 10-year infrastructure plan. The district last announced a closure and consolidation plan in April 2021.
Other updates were about the district’s plan to update a salary schedule for teachers, evaluate compensation across the districts, improve student attendance, and continue financial plans to implement the state’s new funding formula in the fall while also evaluating programs funded by hundreds of millions of federal COVID relief funds that are set to end in the coming years.
Laura Testino covers education and children’s issues for the Commercial Appeal. Reach her at laura.testino@commercialappeal.com or 901-512-3763. Find her on Twitter: @Ldtestino