Meetings scheduled this week with school staff, community members and parents of students should establish criteria for the next Pea Ridge school superintendent.
We applaud the members of the Pea Ridge School Board and their latest effort to search for a superintendent for the district.
At the last board meeting, board members approved the recommendation from interim superintendent Roland Smith to hire Paul Hewitt, an assistant professor of educational leadership at the University of Arkansas, as a co-advisor to the board in their search.
Smith has been an asset to the board, the district and the community. He has meticulously worked to get a handle on the district and forge good working relationships with civic leaders.
The school is foundational to Pea Ridge. The district’s well-being and success is vital to the life of the community. Its future is the business of all members of this community. And,those community members are now being asked to participate in the search for a new leader.
Hewitt has scheduled a visit to Pea Ridge on Wednesday and plans to meet with school’s staff throughout the day. He has scheduled meetings with civic leaders on Thursday and is holding an open meeting at 5:30 p.m. Thursday to hear from parents and other community members.
The current search is a tremendous contrast to the first search - a clandestine, hurried search for a superintendent with a private, secretive meeting in a hotel room in another city just weeks after former superintendent Mike Van Dyke announced his resignation.
The former process began on April 25, when School Board president JennyWood told board members superintendent Mike Van Dyke was looking at other jobs. Van Dyke was not present at that meeting. At that time, before the resignation was presented, the board advertised superintendent’s position. The next day, April 26, Buddy Auman, director of the Northwest Arkansas Educational Cooperative, confirmed Dyke was replacing him as director. At the regular May School Board meeting (May 9), Van Dyke presented his resignation to the board, it was accepted.
The board formed a search committee comprised of Bonnie Fullmer, curriculum coordinator, and four principals to search for new superintendent. That committee narrowed the more than 20 applications to five and met secretively with those five candidates in a room at the Marriott Hotel in Bentonville on May 16. That evening, a special School Board meeting was held to interview the two candidates selected by the committee.
The board members would not disclose the names ofthose candidates and met in the superintendent’s building for four hours of executive session. When they came into open session, they announced their intention to offer the job to Jimmy Cunningham of Hampton.
At a special School Board meeting Thursday, May 19, board members announced that Cunningham declined the job and their decision to hire an interim superintendent. At a special meeting June 2, the board announced its intention to offer the job to Dr. Roland Smith. Smith accepted the job and began working prior to Van Dyke’s departure June 30.
What a breath of fresh air it is to have the community involved this time around.
The search involving the people who will be most affected is indicative of a School Board willing to take wise steps to find the district’s next leader.
This school has grown tremendously and appears as though it will continue to grow.
Its success is our concern. Be involved.
Opinion, Pages 4 on 11/02/2011