The Trenton R-9 Board of Education approved a contract with the Missouri School Boards Association Tuesday evening to assist with a superintendent search for the district.
The board approved a letter of resignation from Superintendent Dan Wiebers at a special closed session meeting at the end of last month. The resignation will take effect on June 30th, 2019. Wiebers will replace Doctor Roger Barnes as the Chillicothe R-2 Superintendent.
The contract with MSBA was approved following a presentation from Consultant Doctor Bob Watkins of the MSBA Superintendent Search Services on how he and other consultants could help the Trenton School Board with various aspects of the superintendent search. The services will cost seven percent of the first year salary of the new superintendent.
The board also approved offering a three-year superintendent contract to a candidate as well as a starting salary range of $105,000 to $120,000 for a candidate with administrative experience, with superintendent experience preferred. Board member Brandon Gibler said setting the starting salary in that range would “leave room to grow.” He also said he believed money spent for assistance with search would be “money well spent”.
Watkins said the district’s superintendent search advertisement would be published statewide and nationwide either Wednesday or Thursday. He will also conduct a survey of Trenton R-9 board members, district teachers, and administrators, and other community members to determine what characteristics are preferred in a new superintendent. A link to the survey is expected to be put on the school district’s website soon.
Watkins said he and the other consultants would facilitate candidate inquiries as well as collect resumes and applications. The consultants will also be in charge of coordinating the closing of applications, scheduling final interviews, recommending questions for the board to ask and providing a checklist during the interviews, and communicating with the chosen candidate before the board officially calls to offer him or her the position.
Watkins will recommend or not recommend the board interview candidates for the position based on opinions of board members, community members, consultants, and other current and previous school associates of the candidates. He noted he will only recommend serious candidates for board interviews as he will specifically ask applicants about their seriousness before closing.
The board will still see all of the applications, though, and it will conduct all of the interviews. None of the consultants will sit in on the interviews, which Watkins said usually last about two hours. This will be his 115th superintendent search of which he has been a part. If the board believes the search was “not done right”, the consultants will come back to do it again for free.
Watkins predicted that Trenton R-9 will have 23 applicants for superintendent based on its size and a search he recently completed for the East Buchanan School District which had 28 applicants.
Board President Doug Franklin said the MSBA consultants plan to complete the search by the end of January.
