The District 209 school board may have landed on a search firm to facilitate the process of finding a new superintendent. The board was scheduled to vote on whether or not to approve a contract for Iowa-based Ray and Associates at a regular meeting on Jan. 14, which was the day of the newspaper’s print deadline.
Outgoing D209 Supt. Jesse Rodriguez announced last month that he was resigning to take the superintendent position at Zion-Benton Township High School District 126. The District 126 school board approved a three-year contract for Rodriguez at a meeting on Dec. 17.
He’ll leave the Proviso district on June 30, 2020 and start in his new role at Zion on July 1, 2020.
According to the firm’s website, Ray and Associates “specializes in educational executive leadership searches. We recruit traditional and non-traditional candidates for public schools, private schools and higher education institutions/organizations.”
When Rodriguez announced his resignation, Ned Wagner, D209’s board president, told Forest Park Review that Rodriguez “really put his heart and soul into working on behalf of the children of our community and probably, most definitely, to the detriment of his personal life. He was absolutely consumed with transforming our school district and it became that time.”
