Broward School Board moves forward with superintendent search. Want to weigh in on it?
Anyone interested in leading Broward County Public Schools, the sixth-largest school district in the country, has less than a month to apply. And anyone interested in weighing in on who the new superintendent should be has exactly a week to do so.
After a complicated three-month period, the Broward School Board and its previous superintendent, Vickie Cartwright, mutually agreed to part ways on Jan. 24. The board installed Earlean Smiley as interim superintendent and hired McPherson & Jacobson, a Nebraska-based search firm, to conduct the national search for Cartwright’s permanent replacement. The district is paying the firm $50,000.
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The search process started in November. The board wants to hire a new superintendent by this summer, ahead of the start of the 2024-25 school year.
The school district, with about 260,000 students, launched an online survey March 14 for community members to provide feedback on what characteristics they’d like the new superintendent to have, and what they consider the most important issues and challenges that a new superintendent will face.
The survey also asks participants to list “the excellent programs and educational opportunities that the district offers” and “the positive aspects of living in Broward County.”
The six-question survey, available online in English, Spanish, Haitian Creole and Portuguese, will be open until 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, April 6. Parents, guardians, students and staff can fill it out online at browardschools.com/supersearch.
As of Monday, the school district had received 2,520 responses, Cathleen Brennan, a Broward district spokeswoman said Wednesday, but the district couldn’t immediately share any of the survey responses.
What is the timeline to hire the next Broward superintendent?
The Broward school district couldn’t immediately provide any data on who has applied for the superintendent’s job or how many candidates have applied.
On Tuesday, the Broward School Board received a proposed timeline from David Azzarito, the district’s executive director of human resources and equity. Here’s what Azzarito described, with the caveat that it’s “subject to change”:
From now until April 6, the district will promote the survey and hold about eight focus groups with students, teachers, administrators, business partners, elected officials and other community members to get feedback.
On April 18, the board will meet to define the rubrics to select finalists. After the application window closes, qualified candidates will submit nine-minute videos that the board members will score, as well as other factors, to choose a still undetermined number of finalists.
The board already listed five required characteristics: strong communication skills, commitment to equity, innovation and creative thinking, ability to build relationships well and experience overseeing a diverse population.
On April 27, the applications, currently available online at macnjake.com, will close.
On May 23, the search firm will share the candidates’ information with the board so they can assess it.
On June 13, the School Board will select the finalists and invite them to Broward for a two-day interview phase.
Board member Allen Zeman pushed the school district on Tuesday to accelerate the process to ensure the board meets a July 1 hiring deadline, even if that means scheduling additional board meetings or asking the search firm to share candidate information before May 23.
“I’m just kind of pointing out that this schedule doesn’t support the intent of the board,” Zeman said.
Azzarito said he’d talk to the firm.
Board member Torey Alston then said that if needed, the board could push the deadline to sometime in August and suggested the board could discuss the final steps further on April 18.
