Knott stepping down July 31st; workshop set
The Escambia County (Ala.) School Board had a workshop this past Monday to begin the process of finding a new school superintendent now that Superintendent John Knott announced his upcoming retirement.
Knott's last day is July 31, 2021, and according to Board Chairman Cindy Jackson, there is not a lot of time to do the leg work so the board has asked the Alabama Association of School Boards (AASB) for help with the process.
“We held a three-hour workshop with AASB and our lawyers to discuss what we were looking for in a superintendent,” said Jackson. “There was a lot of input, and we have another workshop next Tuesday at noon where we will are going to decide if we want to hire AASB to do the search for us.”
Jackson said AASB had different type levels of help to offer, meaning they can offer assistance with local or regional search for a superintendent, all the way to a national search.
“I don't think we have enough time to do a national search, we are on a time schedule,” Jackson said.
“If we hire them, they would advertise, do background checks, check references and all of that. Then we will tell them how many we want to narrow it down to and keep whittling the search pool down.”
Once a pool of possible candidates is determined, the school board will interview each candidate and narrow the search further. The school board will, of course, have the final decision as to what candidate is chosen.
She said the AASB sent her a timeline that would be feasible and allow the board to do a good search and they have the search process down to a science, noting that they are currently assisting six other school systems in hiring school administration.
“I send the information I get to all the board members and our lawyers so we are all informed every step of the way,” said Jackson. “AASB gave us a folder with information to look at so we, as board members, can come up with what job performance is expected of a new superintendent.”
Jackson said when they get down to the final phase, the board lawyers will draw up a contract with the superintendent, which will be tweaked by the lawyer and school board for this particular school system.
“We may have to have an interim for a month of two, but we don't want to rush it,” said Jackson. “We want to take our time. They're going to be invested in that area they will be serving, so that we get the right fit. Each school system is different. We are still in the very early stages of this process.”
The school board will decide at the workshop Tuesday if they will partner with AASB to find a new superintendent.
