Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
School board to interview five finalists
Search winding down for Rogers superintendent
ROGERS — The School Board will begin candidate interviews Monday for superintendent. The board is expected to make a choice by mid-April.
The educator will be the district’s third superintendent since 1993. Janie Darr, who’s been in the position for nearly 17 years, announced her intention to retire this summer.
The nationwide search has come down to five finalists from different states. A sixth candidate the board chose to interview withdrew from consideration. Sixty-one people applied.
The board will interview two candidates Monday and Tuesday and one Wednesday.
Each interview is scheduled to take two hours in executive sessions, said Kristen Cobbs, board president.
Cobbs did not have an exact schedule of the interviews as of Friday but said the last interview would be with Roger Hill on Wednesday night.
The following are summaries of each candidate’s experience.
Much of the information for these summaries is from biographies provided by Ray and Associates, an Iowa-based firm assisting the board with its search.
MARLIN BERRY
Berry is in his sixth year as superintendent of Olathe Public Schools, a district of nearly 30,000 students. Olathe is the second-largest district in Kansas and about twice the size of the Rogers district.
Berry serves on the board of the Kansas School Superintendents Association and is chairman-elect for the Kansas Council of Superintendents. He was named Kansas superintendent of the year for 2013.
He served as superintendent of the Abilene and Smoky Valley school districts, both in Kansas, before joining Olathe. He earned his doctorate in education policy and administration from the University of Kansas.
Berry and his wife, Judy, have two daughters. He serves on the Olathe Medical Center Board of Trustees, the Olathe Chamber of Commerce board, the Olathe Economic Advisory Council and the Juvenile Corrections Advisory Board.
Olathe, a rapidly growing district in suburban Kansas City, has faced some adversity. Last summer the district made $2 million in cuts, a move deemed necessary because of reduced and frozen state funding at a time of increased costs and continued enrollment growth, according to a district news release in July.
Berry declined to be interviewed for this story, citing a request by Ray and Associates not to speak with media before interviewing with the board.
ALEXA CUNNINGHAM
Cunningham oversees a district that consists entirely of high schools in the Phoenix area. The Tolleson Union School District has an enrollment of more than 11,500 students in six high schools and two alternative programs. Cunningham has been an educator in Arizona for more than 26 years. She taught English and social studies for 12 years, served as an assistant principal/ athletic director for two years, a principal for three years and an assistant superintendent for five years before becoming superintendent in 2011.
She completed her doctorate in educational leadership through Arizona State University in 2012.
Cunningham did not return an email message seeking comment last week. Her district was on spring break.
BILL GRONSETH
Gronseth started his educational career in the Duluth, Minn., School District in 1997. He worked as a teacher, assistant principal, principal and assistant superintendent. He was named superintendent in 2012. The district has about 8,600 students.
Gronseth has traveled to Arkansas to visit family members. His youngest son is graduating from high school this year, allowing Gronseth and his wife, Deanna, a good chance to seek other professional opportunities, he said.
“I did hear about the Rogers School District and really started looking into it,” he said. “I’m really impressed by the support the schools have and the direction they’re going. It seems you have a really supportive community, and I would look forward to being a part of it.”
Gronseth earned a master’s degree in instruction from the University of Minnesota. He’s doing research in the area of professional development for his dissertation to complete a doctorate in leadership from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota.
He asked the Duluth community to help guide planning through the Think Kids initiative, which resulted in a four-year continuous improvement plan. That plan includes specific goals associated with student achievement, closing the achievement gap and managing class sizes.
ROGER HILL
If the board puts a strong emphasis on staying the course after Darr’s departure, Hill has an advantage. He is the only internal candidate in the running for the job.
He’s also the only finalist who’s never been a superintendent, though he does have more than 20 years of experience as a school administrator. He has a doctorate in educational administration from the University of Arkansas.
Hill became assistant superintendent for human resources in 2011. Before that he spent 15 years as principal at Kirksey Middle School, where he and the school accumulated numerous honors and awards.
He earned the Arkansas Middle School Principal of the Year award in 2002. He also obtained master principal status through the Arkansas Leadership Academy in 2008.
Kirksey was the first middle school in the state to be named a Diamond School to Watch in 2006. The designation highlighted Kirksey as a model school for the nation.
Hill and his wife, Laura, have been part of the Rogers-Lowell community since 1996. Their son and daughter both graduated from Rogers High School, as did their son-in-law.
“I’m very proud to work for the Rogers School District and excited about the possibility of a different role,” he said.
DAVID PENNINGTON
Pennington’s experience as superintendent stretches back to 1995 when he began as head of the Blackwell School District in north central Oklahoma. He was hired in 2004 to lead the neighboring Ponca City district, which has an enrollment of 5,150.
His pursuit of the Rogers job is not about leaving Ponca City. It’s about a great opportunity in Rogers, he said.
“It is about the opportunity to work with what I believe to be not only a great central office staff, but a great teaching staff in a great community,” Pennington said.
He said Rogers was one of the districts Ponca City’s curriculum department looked at to develop Common Core standards. Oklahoma has since dropped out of Common Core.
“That was one of my first insights to the district and gave me a real appreciation for the quality of the staff,” he said.
He grew up in Tulsa and has family ties to Arkansas. His father is from Mansfield. One of his four children used to live in Rogers. He has a daughter-in-law who was a teacher in Farmington and Bentonville.
Pennington has held numerous national and state leadership positions. Last school year he was president of the American Association of School Administrators. Before that he served two terms on the association’s governing board and one term on its executive committee. He developed relationships with superintendents across the country through that work, he said.
Pennington is a primary figure in a lawsuit he said will be filed Monday against the state of Oklahoma. He discovered in 2014 the state had not been following the law in the calculation of state aid having to do with a certain class of property.
The state fixed the error last year, but the 47 districts involved as plaintiffs in the lawsuit are seeking the revenue they lost during the 23 previous years the money had been misappropriated, he said.