San Dieguito chooses search management firm

The San Dieguito Union School District Board is moving forward in the search for a new superintendent. At a special board meeting on Sunday, February 5, the board interviewed three search firms and selected the Education Support Team (ESS) to help them through the process in the coming months.

The vote was 3–2, opposed by trustees Michael Allman and Fan Anderson. The $25,800 contract with ESS will be returned to the board of directors for approval at the February 13 board meeting.

The county received seven offers from search firm executives and selected three for interviews on January 31: Cosca Group, ESS and Leadership Associates.

The ESS search will be led by Dr. Suzette Lovely and Dr. Gary Rutherford. Lovely worked for 35 years in public schools, last serving as a superintendent at Carlsbad Unified before retiring in 2016. Rutherford stepped down as superintendent in 2017, ending a 40-year public education career in California.

Lovely was a member of the search team that facilitated the placement of Superintendent Jody Brentlinger in neighboring Solana Beach School District, and ESS conducted successful searches in Huntington Beach and the San Marcos Unified District, which also had a school board with three new members in 2021. .

San Dieguito Board President Rimga Viscante liked that ESS worked with comparable areas and situations. Viscante also liked that the verification process involved a social media analyst who checked the candidate’s online presence and digital fingerprint. The ESS screening also includes third-party criminal and background checks to ensure there are no unpleasant surprises and that the candidate meets the district’s high expectations.

SDUHSD Vice President Jane Lea Smith said the board will need a lot of advice to make sure they make the right choice. She thinks ESS has a slight edge in being able to bring it to the table.

“We don’t agree all the time and it will be a difficult decision,” Smith said.

Allman and Anderson favored the Cosca Group. What Anderson liked the most was that they provided the district with two years of mentoring at no additional cost. Given the area’s history, she felt that supporting Cosca for two years could be very important.

“As I see it now, it’s not an easy road…because our district is unique, we’ve had six superintendents over the past five and a half years,” Anderson said, including three interim superintendents.

Anderson asked if ESS could provide those two years of back end support. Although she couldn’t spend two years on site, Lovely noted that she does serve as a mentor to Solana Beach Superintendent Brentlinger and often talks to her for free.

ESS will also organize a transition meeting with the new superintendent and board to assist the management team in prioritizing and “next steps”. Depending on the needs of the district and the experience of the new superintendent, ESS may also provide board management workshops, support the superintendent in goal setting, and leadership training.

The ESS’s proposed schedule includes meetings with stakeholders in February, in addition to information obtained during the last county search in 2021. The firm will recruit candidates in the spring, with interviews tentatively scheduled for late April. The new superintendent could start work in July.

“After periods of upheaval and controversy, our experience is that a well-designed, participatory, inclusive and transparent stakeholder engagement process is an organizational intervention,” Rutherford said. “Just listening to people, taking what they have to share, weaving it into a leader’s profile where they can recognize their voice and their contribution matters… We strive to do it in depth and well.”

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