WISD looks for Hillis' replacement
Job applicants will be judged on 13 categories
By BARRY HALVORSON bhalvorson@journal-spectator.com

HILLIS

The questions have been put together and now the search is on to find the next superintendent for the Wharton Independent School District.

In December, current Superintendent Don Hillis announced he would be retiring in June.

Hillis has been with the WISD since 1977 and has been superintendent since 1997.

This week, Wharton school trustees held a meeting to get public input on what they want to know from and about superintendent candidates, Board President Don Erdelt said in a phone interview.

"The actual purpose of the meeting was to have a workshop, but the board decided to open it up to the public," he said.

"The purpose of the meeting was to develop an evaluation instrument to look at the applications and to develop a set of questions for the interview process.

"We have maybe 12 to 14 categories of questions (actually there are 13) ranging from finance to curriculum."

Erdelt said it was important to have the community involved in this preliminary part of the hiring process.

"We've got a great number of questions that we brought to the meeting and went through the list," Erdelt said.

"The audience added to the list and helped us refine some of the questions. They also gave us some ideas about what responses they would like to hear from the candidates in response to some of the questions. It was a very constructive meeting."

Erdelt said the first question from the board will be one of the most revealing.

"The first question will be to simply tell us something about themselves both inside education

as well as outside of education." tion edu-

The district has been advertising the opening since Hillis' announcement on its Web site. Erdelt said trustees used the talents of some of the district's administrative staff to put together the employment brochure.

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"We've got a lot of talented people in the district and that gave us the confidence to go forward with the search inhouse," he said.

"Director of Personnel and Public Relations Marjorie Sklar and Administrative Assistant Sandy Koutny put together the information and Tech Coordinator Sheri Ganske helped upload it to the Web," Erdelt explained.

"We examined some other Web sites that were out there but then customized what we built to our district."

In addition to posting the information on the local district's Web page, the electronic brochure was also posted on the Texas Association of School Boards and Texas ISD Web sites.

In addition, Erdelt said the district did a direct mailing of 240 brochures to districts in Regions III, IV, V, VI and VII.

He added that most of those districts have student popul

ations of 4,000 or fewer students.

The district has alr eady started receiving responses to its mail out and Web postings.

Erdelt said they've received one application from as far away as Alaska since the position was posted.

"These are sights that most school administrators check on at least a weekly basis so we should be reaching a large population," Erdelt said.

"But we haven't limited our search to only superintendents. It is also open to assistant superintendents and campus administrators, the full range of potential candidates.

"Even if a person doesn't have a track record as a superintendent, it is up to them to demonstrate the successes they have had."

Minimum qualifications, according to the brochure, include possession of a superintendent certification and a minimum of five years of successful experience as a campus and/or central office educational leader.

It adds that a doctorate is preferred, but not required.

Erdelt said the district will be accepting applications through Feb. 19.

After that, the district will be selecting candidates for interviews on March 4 and planning initial interviews March 11-13.

"We want to pare the list down to five or six individuals," Erdelt said.

"We feel that is a manageable number of people."

Follow-up interviews are set for March 18-20 with the board planning to name a finalist on March 25.

Because Texas Law required a three-week waiting period before allowing districts to hire a superintendent, the board is scheduled to vote on hiring a the finalist on April 16.

The new superintendent will assume his duties on June 1, based on the current schedule.