Covington Independent Public Schools central office. Photo by Nathan Granger | LINK nky

What you need to know

Interviews of applicants for the open position of Covington Independent Public Schools superintendent will begin their next round Saturday.

The Board of Education discussed the interview process at its meeting Thursday night and provided updates to the public on next steps, including how community members can get more involved with the process.

“We have an incredibly large and deep candidate pool from which to choose our next superintendent,” said Board Chair Tom Haggard. “You can also see that our candidate pool is incredibly diverse, which I know is something that this board is very interested in.”

As of Thursday’s meeting, the district had received 44 applications from 16 states. Demographic analysis the board presented indicated that most of the applicants were men. The applicants spanned racial demographics, with the highest number being African-American.

Current Superintendent Alvin Garrison is planning to retire at the end of this academic year. The board contracted with Chicago-based consulting firm Alma Advisory Group in September to head up the search process for a new candidate, which has included a long public input process that employed online surveys, public community input sessions and focus groups to gather data about what the community wanted in its new superintendent.

According to a press release from the board last year, the input process revealed some key desires from the community, including:

  • Improved academic outcomes
  • Increased work-based learning opportunities to help students prepare for careers and post-secondary education
  • More family and student input on decision making
  • Improved communication from the district
  • A new superintendent with experience in the following:
    • change management
    • academic turnaround
    • diagnostic and systems-based thinking
    • authentic communication
    • consensus and coalition building
  • A superintendent who could “drive significant improvements in student achievement; develop a culture of accountability, transparency, excellence and continuous improvement; build high-performing systems, structures, and leaders; maintain strong financial stewardship; and leverage city and community partnerships,” according to the board’s release.

A job ad for the new superintendent went live in November. The hope is to have a final set of two to three finalists selected by March, with an offer to follow shortly thereafter.

Although the Board will be informed of the goings-on of the search process throughout, Board Member Kareem Simpson pointed out that “the Board doesn’t necessarily see all of the candidates that were submitted” right away. Instead, Alma conducted initial interviews to narrow the field, and a screening committee will conduct the interviews starting this weekend. The board will do its own round of interviewing afterwards.

“These interviews that begin on Saturday, they’re all virtual interviews,” Haggard said. “They’ll all be recorded. The Board will have access to all those recordings to be able to view the interview and also all the feedback forms that come out of it as well. So, the Board itself will have access to every single candidate.”

The screening committee will narrow down the field to between five and seven candidates. From there, the final round of interviews will include a selected group of stakeholders, as they’re called, from around the community: two high school students, one parent or caregiver, one general community member, one school or district leader, one licensed pre-k-grade 8 teacher and one non-teaching staff member from around the district. The steering committee, which already includes two district high school teachers, will also participate in the final round of interviewing.

Anyone can nominate either themselves or others to sit on the final interview panel. Panelists will be selected at random from each of these groups. Panelists will receive instructions and work together to choose questions, which anyone from the community can submit for consideration, for the applicants. All input and feedback will likewise be shared with the Board of Education.

The interview panel nomination period begins on Friday.

A timeline showing the final panel selection process. Graphic provided | Alma Advisory Group via Covington Independent Public Schools

The district has created a special webpage where community members can learn about the superintendent process. Although it had not been put up at the time of this article’s writing, the webpage will also serve as a way to make nominations. You can view the webpage at covington.kyschools.us/page/superintendent-search.