District 220 board looking for consultant to help with superintendent search
Barrington Area Unit District 220 board members plan to interview consultants this week in an effort to decide who should help them find a replacement for Superintendent Brian Harris, who's retiring after the 2020-21 academic year.
Harris' planned retirement, announced last month, will be effective June 30. He became District 220's boss in 2014 after spending four years as superintendent of Wheaton Warrenville Unit District 200.
District 220 board members at a meeting Aug. 11 are scheduled to hire a consultant to assist in the search. The school board will hold a special meeting Thursday morning at district headquarters in Barrington — with officials together physically — to interview three candidates narrowed from a larger field.
“I really think that this is something we should do in person,” District 220 board President Penny Kazmier said.
In the running to help find District 220's new leader are recently retired Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Mary Dudek, GovHR USA and Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates.
Dudek, who was director of curriculum and instruction for Cary Elementary District 26 when she joined District 220 as the HR head in 2011, retired last month. Northbrook-based GovHR assisted Barrington in the hiring of Village Manager Scott Anderson in 2019 and Fire Chief John Christian last month.
Schaumburg-based Hazard led the search for former Des Plaines Elementary District 62 Superintendent Floyd Williams Jr., who lasted a little more than a year before resigning in late 2017 under a cloud of misconduct allegations.
Harris applied for the District 220 job at the encouragement of outgoing Superintendent Tom Leonard in April 2014. He was chosen from a field of about a dozen other candidates.