A special meeting has been set for the end of January to vote on a new superintendent hire for District 91, according to Board President Kyra Tyler at the Dec. 10 school board meeting.
That doesn’t mean they have a final candidate selected however, though the iterview process is well underway. Tyler said the board interviewed candidates in person on Dec. 1 and 3.
“There’s been a lot of interest in this position, which we should all be very proud of,” Tyler said. “I think it speaks highly to what a desirable community and position this is.”
Search committee member Cotton said she was amazed by the quality of the candidates. Connor agreed.
“After the last candidate interview, we spent two hours narrowing down the field. That’s how good all of them were,” Connor said.
The next interviews will be held on Saturday, Jan. 9. Each board member was asked during the meeting to submit two questions for the finalists by the end of December; Tyler and Connor will go through them to combine multiples and clean up the way the questions are written.
The Jan. 9 interviews will be in person. Tyler said, “I think we realized that as long as we felt like we could ensure the safety of each other and our candidate, that it was worth it [to meet in person].”
Tyler mentioned that there have been questions from the community about the candidates, “which is fine,” she said. But details won’t be shared for now.
“This is a confidential search,” Tyler said. She added that, “In some states, it’s an open process. In some states, they are required to have public searches. We are not, and we are moving forward in this direction.”
This story was edited. It originally stated the first interviews were held virtually and involved only the search committee and search firm. They were, in fact, held in person with the entire board present.
