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NCSBA presents superintendent‑search survey results: community, staff priorities align on safety, integrity and advocacy
Summary
A North Carolina School Board Association consultant told the Davie County Board that community and staff survey responses largely agreed on the top characteristics desired in a new superintendent and that the search will proceed with an application deadline and an assembled leadership profile.
Sam Tharp of the North Carolina School Board Association presented results from community and staff surveys conducted as part of the district’s superintendent search public input.
Tharp told the board the district received 516 community responses and 406 staff responses; hundreds of respondents also submitted written comments, which NCSBA posted as unredacted PDFs for board review. He said the majority of community respondents live in the district or have children in district schools and that a large share of staff respondents were classroom teachers.
The top characteristics both groups ranked highly included: the ability to provide safe school environments, modeling high standards of integrity, a willingness to listen to input, and an ability to advocate effectively for needed resources. Tharp said four of the top five characteristics were the same for community and staff, demonstrating strong alignment. Top professional experience preferences included experience building and managing schools, successful principalship, classroom teaching experience and prior work in North Carolina public education.
Tharp said he created a draft leadership profile from the results and will post a final profile and application materials to the board on the platform Assembly after the application deadline. He said the application deadline is the 17th and that NCSBA will notify the board on the 18th of the number of applicants, their states of residence and provide a draft press release for the board to use.
On the anonymity and records status, Tharp told the board that survey respondents are anonymous but the survey responses themselves are public records under North Carolina open‑records law; he said redacted copies had already been shared with the board attorney and clerk to allow the district to respond to public records requests while protecting confidential personnel or student information.
Board members thanked staff and community respondents for the high participation rate and said they found the alignment between staff and community encouraging as the search proceeds.
