District 116 board knows what it wants in new boss
Round Lake Area Unit District 116 board members have agreed on the skills they want most in a new superintendent who will lead the system as it prepares to handle financial affairs without state assistance for the first time in eight years.
Feedback from two community meetings and through online surveys was part of the process the board will use in identifying candidates who would best serve as District 116's new boss. The feedback included a desire to hire a superintendent who's bilingual and with unit district experience.
Launched by the Illinois State Board of Education in 2002, a special school finance authority is working to end oversight of District 116. A chief executive officer who reports to the state - not a superintendent under the elected school board - has been District 116's boss.
District 116 has been judged stable enough for the five-member authority to recommend shifting financial decisions back to local leaders. In addition, the elected board will select the new superintendent for the 2010-11 school year.
Board President W. Guy Finley said officials reached consensus on what they want most in a new superintendent after receiving a presentation Thursday from a consultant assisting in the search. Applicants are now being sought.
Experience in a kindergarten-through-12th-grade system, excellent communication skills and an ability to speak Spanish in a district that's 60 percent Hispanic are among the qualities the elected officials would prefer in a new superintendent, Finley said.
"I don't think we'd be looking for someone from the business world who hasn't been a superintendent," he said.
Plans call for superintendent finalists to be identified by the end of February. Wilmette-based PROACT Search Inc. is heading the effort.
Finley said elected officials are prepared to offer the going rate for a superintendent. At comparable Wauconda Unit District 118, Superintendent Dan Coles earned $148,137 in the 2008-09 academic year.
District 116 Chief Executive Officer Ben Martindale, a chief education officer and a chief financial officer have been reporting to the state school finance authority. Those positions would be eliminated with the hiring of the superintendent.
Martindale won't apply for the job. He's said he plans to visit a couple of times a week to ensure the district is running smoothly as financial operations move from state to local control.
District 116's financial descent began in the 1990s. Short-term debt was the main problem that threatened to force District 116's closure and send its students elsewhere in Lake County to be educated.
At one point, its short-term debt reached $14 million. That short-term debt has been eliminated and the district has an education fund that's $25.7 million in the black.