Superintendent search firms help school boards find the right ‘match’

In 2005, recruiter Gary Ray helped lure Superintendent Melody Johnson from Providence, R.I., to lead the Fort Worth school district.

But in May, the same firm struck out trying to find a new superintendent for the district after finalist Joel Boyd withdrew his name from consideration at the eleventh hour.

Ray is now finishing up a second search for the Fort Worth district, which hopes to have a new finalist in place by mid-August.

The school board has been looking for a permanent superintendent for more than a year. Interim Superintendent Pat Linares replaced Superintendent Walter Dansby after his departure last summer.

The school board met in closed session Wednesday to go over a new batch of candidates.

Ray & Associates is among dozens of superintendent search firms in the U.S. The firms act as consultants and help school boards select the best match for their districts from stacks of applications. Districts seldom hire a superintendent without using a search firm, so the businesses wield some control over who runs the nation’s school districts.

Trustees depend on the firms to investigate both good and bad qualities of each candidate, said Cathy Mincberg, CEO of the Houston-based Center for Reform of School Systems.

Almost every search for a new superintendent is like a “bathing beauty contest,” said Mincberg, who conducts leadership and effectiveness training for school boards in the U.S. “Somebody comes out, trots out their beautiful stuff, and people don’t get to dig; they don’t get to take them out on a date and try them out. They [school board members] don’t get to dig deeply and know them more than superficially.”

Transparency varies

A former school administrator himself, Ray has been conducting national superintendent searches for four decades.

“We’re the [nation’s] oldest and largest firm,” said Ray, president and founder of the Cedar Rapids-based company.

Ray provides access to all candidates’ names and files to school boards, he said. During the last search, Fort Worth board members said they saw files for dozens of candidates.

“The bottom line is that the board is our client,” Ray said. “We share information with our client.”

Thompson and Horton, a Houston-based law firm that employs former State Education Commissioner Mike Moses as a consultant, discloses every candidate file to every board member, said Houston attorney David Thompson.

“We always disclosed to the board, not only every single person who applied but every single person we contacted,” Thompson said. “We want the board to know this isn’t just a friends and family thing.”

Thompson and Horton recently conducted a search for the Highland Park school district.

Former Birdville Superintendent Bob Griggs, who operates the search firm Bob E. Griggs & Associates, provides boards with the names and data for just the top six to seven candidates, mostly to avoid the disclosure of confidential information, he said.

It’s an important recruiting tool, he said, to be able to assure candidates that their names will not be disclosed.

“The administrators in the state know my reputation and are confident in me that I will not let their names out so I’m able to have a conversation and a dialogue with the very best administrators out there,” Griggs said.

State law requires that the names of candidates not be disclosed to the public until a finalist is chosen. After a finalist is appointed in public, boards have 21 days before they can make the hiring official.

Questions about loyalty

Ray & Associates recruited Boyd as a candidate for the Fort Worth job from Santa Fe, N.M. Three years ago, while working for the Santa Fe school board, Ray & Associates recruited Boyd for that district.

Fort Worth Trustee Ann Sutherland has said she wondered whether the firm had Boyd’s career more in mind than the district’s interests.

“There are some indications that people do not have confidence and think that we should not have gone back and hired the [same] firm,” Sutherland said.

Griggs said he does not recruit candidates that he has previously placed, because it would put in question his loyalty to the board of trustees that hired him.

“I don’t think that’s ethical for me to go back and steal somebody that I have placed,” Griggs said. “It’s detrimental to me, quite frankly, because the talent pool that I place is eliminated from me, but my loyalty is to the school board.”

The situation involving Boyd was a rare one, Ray said.

“In 40 years, it’s probably happened a few times,” Ray said. “We just don’t fish out of the same pond.”

Back to square one

In Boyd’s case, Ray said he sought permission from the Santa Fe school board before he proceeded to recruit Boyd for the Fort Worth job.

He was chosen as the lone finalist in Fort Worth in February, but after questions about his experience and performance surfaced, Boyd decided to stay in Santa Fe.

Fort Worth was back to square one.

Ray is doing the second search at no charge. He was paid $60,000 for last year’s search.

Fort Worth stopped accepting applications July 13.

The job posting stated that: “The salary will be in the range of $300,000 plus an excellent comprehensive benefits package. The final salary for the successful candidate will be negotiated and determined based upon proven experience, qualifications and meeting Board criteria.”

This story was originally published July 24, 2015 at 4:45 PM with the headline "Superintendent search firms help school boards find the right ‘match’."