The city school district is once again looking to secure long-term leadership in a role that has been vacated twice in two years.
The search for a new superintendent for the Rochester City School District is underway.
Former superintendent Lesli Myers-Small resigned the week before school started after board members informed her in an executive session that they wanted to cut short her contract, which was set to end in 2024. A source with knowledge of the matter said Myers-Small had received negative performance evaluations.
She was replaced by interim superintendent Carmine Peluso, a former principal in the district who was appointed to chief of schools in 2018.
At a meeting on Tuesday night, Board president Cynthia Elliott said in a school board meeting on Tuesday that State Monitor Shelly Jallow was an expert on superintendent searches, and requested that Jallow help guide the process.
Jallow wrote her dissertation on the subject in 2011, focusing on factors in the search leading to gender inequities in the field. She said there are three ways to go about it: search as a board, refer to BOCES, a state agency, or lean on a private search firm.
Commissioner Willa Powell echoed Board Vice President Beatriz LeBron, saying that it would be ill-advised to search as a school board.
“Doing it ourselves introduces a potential for bias, and we don't want to even project the image or the possibility of bias,” Powell said.
LeBron said while she would rather use a search firm, she’s wary of how that approach could impact the longevity of a chosen candidate in the district.
“I have very strong opinions around this whole entire process feeling very ‘scammy’ across all school districts, especially urban school districts, with search firms and recycling superintendents, if you will," LeBron said.
Regardless of which path they take, she said the district needs to promote itself for what it is in order to find the right candidate.
“You want someone who has been very thoughtful about why they're applying and why they were applying here,” Jallow said. “So, it's a two-way piece: that you're looking for someone but someone is also looking for the right district so that they think they can fit and be successful here as well.”
Board members did not agree on whether to make the search open or confidential. Commissioner Ricardo Adams said he’d consider a search firm except one, but did not elaborate.
