ENCINITAS — The San Dieguito Union High School District is kicking off its highly anticipated superintendent search with various strategies for gathering community input to guide the process.
With four superintendents over the last two years, San Dieguito leaders say they are committed to a thorough search and selection process in hopes of finding the new long-term leader the district desperately needs.
The district is working with consulting firm Education Support Services Group, or ESS, to lead its superintendent search. At a Feb. 23 meeting, ESS consultants Dr. Gary Rutherford and Dr. Suzette Lovely presented a search timeline and options for outreach, including town halls, a districtwide survey and focus groups.
“It’s hunting season for superintendents right now, and so an aggressive timeline could serve the board well in getting the well-vetted candidates who may be out looking,” Rutherford said.
Once the application period closes on March 24, ESS will use various criteria to rank the candidates for the board, which will begin reviewing applications in mid-April. The board is then scheduled to interview candidates at the end of April and, ideally, ratify a contract with a chosen candidate by May 17.
The district is seeking its first permanent superintendent since the firing of Cheryl James-Ward, who was placed on leave in April 2022, just months after her hire, due to her comments about the Chinese American community that many criticized as racist.
Tina Douglas has served as interim superintendent since then, and while she stated at one point that she would resign by early 2023, she has more recently agreed to continue through the end of the school year.
Much of the Feb. 23 meeting revolved around community input in the process. Several public speakers and Trustee Phan Anderson expressed the desire for an advisory search committee that would be involved in the interview and even the selection process.
“Hiring a superintendent is too momentous and long-lasting for five people to be the sole decision-makers, especially as this is a newly elected, mostly inexperienced board,” said resident Marcel Chambers.
Anderson emphasized that she would like an advisory board with different community members appointed by each trustee to serve as “assistants” in helping select a candidate. Specifically, she wants to see parents’ voices in this process.
“I’m not superwoman, I’m not Wonder Woman — I need all the help I can get,” Anderson said.
Lovely advised against such a panel, saying that candidates would be less likely to apply if they knew that non-board members would be involved in their interview due to confidentiality concerns.
Other trustees agreed, with the majority saying they would like to gather input via town halls at different school sites, surveys that will be shared in different languages, and focus groups with stakeholders in special education, the Parent Teacher Association and foundations, English language learner programs, administration and executive teams, employee associations, and student groups.
Trustee Katrina Young also requested ESS to reach out to a list of historically underrepresented minority groups to ensure their voices are heard.
Anderson and Trustee Michael Allman did not support focus groups, arguing that they lead to specific individuals being excluded, but were overruled by the board majority. Rutherford added that people not included in focus groups could use the other input opportunities.
“We can’t necessarily speak to every man, woman and child in the district, but we can certainly make the survey available,” he said.
Using the community input they will gather through mid-March, ESS will also craft a “leadership profile” that essentially serves as the district’s wishlist for a superintendent. This profile will be presented to the board next month.
Lovely and Rutherford said they would implement an extensive background check process for all candidates, including calling both listed and unlisted references, auditing their credentials and combing the internet to avoid surprises about their history.
