Interviews cancelled as finalists for Charles City superintendent job pull out

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

Charles City School District Board of Directors President Pat Rottinghaus said she was afraid it might happen.

“I didn’t want it to go down like this,” Rottinghaus said. “I don’t know if we are just in the wrong location or we were just too slow in our hiring process.”

The Charles School District had narrowed its superintendent search to two finalists, and the candidates were slated to go through an interview process on Tuesday.

Late Monday night, those plans changed when one finalist pulled himself out of consideration and the other said he would only consider taking the job on an interim basis.

The finalists were Joseph Brown and John Howard. Brown had served as superintendent of the Fairmont Area Schools in Minnesota, and is currently interim superintendent of the Clear Creek Amana Community School District near Iowa City. Howard is the current 7th-12th grade principal at Independence.

In a press release over the weekend, the school board said that each candidate possesses significant experience recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers and staff, building school and community relations, and promoting communities of care and support for students.

The two candidates were scheduled to get tours of the district and the community before undergoing a vigorous interview process on Tuesday. Three interview teams had been set up to talk with the candidates — two teams made up of community members, business leaders, teachers and students and a third interview team consisting of administration, senior leaders and other school support staff. The candidates were also going to interview separately with a team of school board members.

Howard informed the search committee Monday evening that he was pulling out, however, and the search committee then talked to Brown, who said he didn’t want to come if he was the only person being interviewed.

Rottinghaus said that Brown is still interested, but only as an interim superintendent who would fill the position for the next school year while the district searches for a permanent superintendent.

“That’s a different process, so he’s not coming for the interview,” Rottinghaus said. “The special meeting scheduled for Tuesday is cancelled.”

An article in the Fairmont Sentinel says that Brown had planned on retiring from the Fairmont district at the end of this school year, but when the interim position opened at Clear Creek Amana he received permission from the Fairmont school board to leave his contract a year early so he could serve his last year at the Iowa school district.

Brown was born and raised in Iowa, and was an Iowa state senator for two terms from 1979 to 1986, serving the district that included the Clear Creek Amana area.

The district is looking to replace Mike Fisher, who recently resigned after four years in Charles City in order to take the position of superintendent in his home town of Oskaloosa. His employment in Charles City will officially end on June 30.

Grundmeyer Leader Services, based in Ankeny, is the search firm that was hired by the district to help in the Charles City Superintendent search.

Rottinghaus said that about 10 candidates applied for the position in Charles City. Those resumes were given to board members for review last weekend. The board narrowed that down to four candidates, but Rottinghaus said that one candidate pulled out, and another accepted a different job, leaving just the two finalists.

Before things fell apart Monday night, the hiring process was going much more quickly than what was originally planned, and Rottinghaus said that was deliberate.

“Our pool of candidates was narrowing as we were waiting,” Rottinghaus said. “There are a lot of superintendent openings in Iowa this year.”

She said that she’d been informed that there were more than 50 superintendent openings in the state, and every time one of those is filled, it typically opens up another position.

“We were just a little bit behind,” she said.

Rottinghaus said that the school board now has a couple options.

“We can open it up again and see if anyone new applies,” she said. “The search firm doesn’t think that is a viable option, however, because there are so many openings in the state.”

Rottinghaus said that the option that the board is more likely to choose would be to look for an interim superintendent, who would just serve for one year. Brown would be considered as a candidate for that position, but Rottinghaus said the board would open it up to others.

“It could be a retired superintendent, who would have no problem just doing it for a year,” she said. “Or it could be a brand new person, who wants to get their feet wet. It could be part time, it could be full time.”

Rottinghaus said the board members need to get together and decide what they want in an interim candidate. She also said that an interim designation could become permanent in the right situation.