Urbana Schools Administrator Updates

With the administrative shakeup of the Urbana School District 116, the board is looking to an outside firm to conduct the search for peremanent replacements. From the News-Gazette today:

Urbana school board to hire search firm to find new administrators
The Urbana school board is planning to hire an outside search firm to help in its hunt for a permanent superintendent and two permanent assistant superintendents.

Interim Superintendent Preston Williams discussed that option with members Tuesday evening, suggesting the board would benefit from the breadth a national search firm would provide. The board placed former Superintendent Don Owen and Assistant Superintendent of Human Resoures Kathy Barbour on paid leave Dec. 4 with little explanation. Assistant Superintendent of Student Learning Samuel Byndom was placed on leave in late October and faces a felony eavesdropping charge after allegedly trying to use a special pen to secretly record a closed board meeting on Oct. 28.

Williams detailed for the board the last position he'd held with Iowa-based school-executive search firm Ray And Associates, saying what he'd seen there during a superintendent search for a district south of Chicago had "impressed" him.

"It is a very exhausting process," he said.

In example documentation provided to the board, Williams noted that some of the steps a firm could employ start with meeting individual board members, then employees and board-identified stakeholders and holding open forums before beginning a screening process that eventually results in a presentation of eight to 12 candidates.

More information at the full article here. This is happening while there were some concerns about the interim administrator's pay, including $1,200 per day for the interim superintendent. Tom Kacich passed along the School Board president's explanation of how it was formulated:

"We started with Preston's last salary before he retired about five years ago. We then applied the increases he would have received had he stayed with us. That equaled $220,000 for a work year of roughly 220 days (the normal 240 less holiday and minimal vacation days). This came to $1,000 per day.

"That would have been his salary if he was a permanent part of our staff, plus he would have earned related benefits, such as Medicare contributions, paid vacation and employer health insurance. Since he is an interim contract employee, he must bear those costs, not the district. Those costs amount to roughly 20 percent of salary, which brought us to the $1,200 per day. This is per day, not per hour, and Preston is going well above and beyond the normal eight-hour day.

"As a final task, we checked with the State Board of Education to find out if this figure was similar to other interim superintendents in Illinois, which it is. Similar calculations were done for the other two interims (interim assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction Jean Korder and assistant superintendent for human resources and professional development Gayle Jeffries), who also are contract employees, not full salaried administrators like our permanent employees."

Full Tom's Mailbag article available here.