Beaverton board, consultants set timetable for superintendent search, favor confidential finalist process

Beaverton School District trustees and the district's search consultants used an Oct. 14 work session to set a timetable and ground rules for the search for the district's next superintendent, emphasizing broad community engagement, tightly scripted candidate evaluations and confidentiality for finalist names. Chair Sunita Garg presided over the session.

Hank, the lead search consultant, told the board this meeting was the formal kickoff to the search and walked members through a draft calendar that places community focus groups and an online survey in early November, a December work session to approve the board's “next superintendent criteria,” a recruitment window opening in mid‑December and an application deadline on Jan. 14. "There will be high level of community engagement," Hank said, describing two core outcomes: to “school us up” on the district's current state and to surface the community’s aspirations that will shape the criteria consultants use to evaluate candidates.

Why it matters: the board's decisions about the criteria, the scope of outreach and whether finalist names are public will shape both who applies and how community input is weighed. Consultants said those choices affect whether sitting superintendents and other top officials feel safe applying; that, in turn, can influence the pool's size and seniority.

How candidates will be evaluated

Consultants presented a multi-stage screening…