PINEDALE – The Sublette County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees finalized a contract with executive recruitment company McPherson and Jacobson to provide professional consultation in the search for a new superintendent at a Feb. 24 special meeting.

The trustees unanimously approved the contract with the firm and discussed the search process with Dr. David Barker, a McPherson and Jacobson consultant based in Lander.

The timeline to find a new superintendent was the primary topic. Board Chairman Jamison Ziegler said that he hoped to have a strong candidate lined up by May.

Barker recommended three to four weeks to advertise the position through professional organizations and school administrator websites. Barker added that part of his role as consultant was to reach out to contacts and potential candidates across the country.

Following the advertising period – Barker estimated a closing date of March 25 – McPherson and Jacobson will spend two weeks screening candidates, Barker said. Based on that timeline, Barker hoped to have a list of three to five strong candidates to present to the board by the week of April 8.

The board discussed allowing one week for the candidates to visit the community and tentatively set the week of April 19 aside for interviews with the hopes of making a selection by April 27.

Barker stressed the need to include stakeholders in the process, suggesting community members, teachers, administrators, staff and students for input during the search. He also encouraged the board to conduct surveys with the public and stakeholders.

The board then established selection criteria to include in an advertisement. Barker asked each board member to list the individual traits they were looking for in a superintendent. Barker collected the responses, created a list and then asked board members to rank the responses to come up with a list of the top characteristics. The final list included: forward thinking, a great communicator, honesty, integrity, approachability and comfort with technology.

The last item on the agenda was compensation. Barker and Vern McAdams, the district’s director of business and operations, crunched numbers from state records to determine the average superintendent pay in Wyoming school districts with less than 1,000 students and districts between 1,000 and 2,000 students – approximately $142,000.

In order to be competitive and find a strong candidate, McAdams recommended a base salary of $150,000. The trustees discussed offering district housing as negotiable.

Barker and the trustees agreed that McAdam’s figures made an attractive package.