AISD Superintendent Search Begins

What does it take to be superintendent of a major urban school district? With the position in Austin opening up next year, the Austin Independent School District board of trustees is using the next month to ask locals how the "help wanted" ad should read.

Superintendent Pat Forgione's 10-year stint leading the district ends June 30, 2009. The formal search for his replacement starts in October, and according to board President Mark Williams, "September will really be community-engagement month on the profile and characteristics of the next superintendent."

Under instruction from the board, the superintendent's office hired ProAct Search Inc. to run the national search. Starting with a boilerplate job description, staff from the Milwaukee-based recruitment firm will meet with the District Advisory Council in mid-September to start defining and refining the ideal candidate profile. The big public consultation runs Sept. 23-25. During those days, ProAct staff will meet separately with invited groups, including Education Austin, the Cham­ber of Commerce, neighborhood associations, and environmental groups. In the evenings, there will be a series of public forums at several locations around the city, and the district will take public feedback via the AISD website and a telephone hotline. District spokesman Andy Welch explained, "The idea is for ProAct to be bombarded with all this community involvement, for them to go away and assimilate all this information and to report back to the board, 'Well, here is the compilation of the characteristics, the traits, the strengths, and attributes that the Austin community says it wants.'"

Williams hopes stakeholders will also talk about broader structural issues in the district. "That input will give us context," he said. "The profile will describe who's got to do what, but how do you get the right match for this time and our needs?"

Education Austin President Louis Malfaro said his union plans to attend every public meeting possible. "This is a very big deal for us," he said. "Forgione was a mixed bag." Before joining AISD, the current superintendent established a national reputation as an administrator, including three years as commissioner of education statistics with the U.S. Department of Education. Malfaro hopes his replacement will also have worked in educational systems outside Texas but, unlike Forgione, will have classroom experience. "We need someone who knows schools," Malfaro added, "not someone who knows school districts from a state-level, policy perspective."