Charles City School Board to decide on next steps in superintendent search at special meeting Monday

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

The Charles City School District Board of Directors will hold a special meeting on Monday to decide on the next steps in the process of hiring a new superintendent.

The meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the Charles City High School Library. The board members will meet with representatives from Grundmeyer Leader Services, the Ankeny-based search firm hired by the district, and decide what direction they want to go.

The search process came to an abrupt halt this past Monday night, when the two finalists for the position pulled out of interviews that were scheduled for the next day, Tuesday.

The district had received about 10 applications for the position currently held by 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.

Those initial candidates were narrowed down to four finalists, but one candidate pulled out, and another accepted a different job, leaving just two finalists, Joseph Brown and John Howard. Brown had been 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.

Late Monday evening, Howard contacted the search firm and informed them he was accepting the position of superintendent in the Union School District in La Porte City. Brown said that he didn’t want to come Tuesday if he was the only person being interviewed.

Brown has said he is available on either an interim or a permanent basis. It had been incorrectly reported that he would only be available as an interim superintendent.

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 resigned from Fairmont a year early so he could take the job 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.

According to the agenda, at the meeting this Monday the board could discuss the pros and cons of starting over and reopening the application process, versus instead hiring a superintendent on an interim basis, and establish timelines for both.

Charles City School Board President Pat Rottinghaus said that Grundmeyer won’t charge additional fees if the district hires an interim superintendent, and would continue to lead the search if the district does hire an interim.

“If we go with an interim superintendent, we will be their first search in the fall at no additional cost to the district,” Rottinghaus said. “That’s part of the contract we have with them.”

If the board chooses to hire an interim, the board will need to decide if the position is full time or part time, and could also discuss the benefit package the district will offer as well as the expectations of the position.

The agenda states that the board could also take steps on communication to the public and district staff on how people could proceed if they are aware of a candidate who may be interested, and where they could direct candidates to apply.

The board will also plan on how the final decision will be made, based on the candidate pool received, and could direct Grundmeyer Leader Services to either seek applicants for an interim or to reopen the search.