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School board approves NCSBA consulting agreement and posts superintendent vacancy; narrows application timeline
Summary
The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education voted to retain the North Carolina School Boards Association to run its superintendent search, approved the vacancy posting and application materials and set an April application deadline after a lengthy discussion of outreach and survey design.
The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education voted to hire the North Carolina School Boards Association (NCSBA) to facilitate the district’s superintendent search and approved the vacancy announcement, application materials and an April application deadline.
The board approved a consulting agreement for search services with the NCSBA and instructed the consultant to post the vacancy and open the application platform. Board members spent more than an hour with Sam Thorpe of NCSBA discussing the timeline, the vacancy announcement language, outreach and survey strategy designed to gather input from staff, families and the wider community.
Board members said they want transparent language for residency expectations, clearer statements about curriculum and attendance priorities in the application, and more targeted survey questions. The board decided the vacancy announcement will state that North Carolina law requires the selected candidate to live within the county and that the board’s preference is that the superintendent reside within the school district; the announcement will note exceptions may be considered case-by-case.
Thorpe said the application platform (the vendor is Red Rover) auto-fills resumes to reduce duplicate entry and that the board’s advertised application deadline needed a fixed date to appear on the platform. Board members asked that the vacancy notice be distributed beyond current families, through civic groups, nonprofit partners, alumni, county lists, faith and affinity groups, local media and the district’s communications channels.
The board approved edits to the application’s short- and long-form essay prompts. Members asked to add questions about experience addressing chronic student absenteeism, approaches to family and community relations, success working with diverse populations and instructional/curricular leadership, and to clarify an item on the use and assessment of instructional technology.
On surveys, the board agreed to a shorter approach combining (a) a ranking of top priorities, (b) a shortlist of experience types (check-all-that-apply) and (c) three open-ended prompts: what the community wants in a new superintendent, what experience the superintendent should bring, and where the superintendent should focus work. The board assigned itself to prepare a list of the 10 items to be ranked at an upcoming board retreat and to finalize translations and a distribution plan for the survey.
The board directed staff and the consultant to post the vacancy and to provide board members with finalized application and survey links. Sam Thorpe said the NCSBA will provide redacted and full PDF copies of survey comments and a comparative analysis for board review.
Votes at the meeting: the consulting agreement, the vacancy posting and related application materials were approved by voice vote.
