The president of the Montgomery County Board of Education expects to have a new schools superintendent in place “well in advance” of the July 1 deadline, though he said the board won’t reveal its finalists for the job before making the hire despite calls for a more transparent process.
“I don’t see that becoming public to protect those individuals,” said Michael Durso, a longtime board member and former principal of Springbrook High School in Silver Spring. As president, he will help oversee the board’s search for a new superintendent of Montgomery County Public Schools.
“That’s been a bit of a bone of contention in the past, when the public felt we were being too secretive or really weren’t transparent,” Durso acknowledged Thursday. But he also said keeping the finalists for the job confidential is important to attract candidates who may already be superintendents in other jurisdictions.
Finalists in recent superintendent searches in Boston and Palm Beach, Florida, were revealed to the public for feedback before those local school boards made their decisions.
Last year, after Superintendent Joshua Starr resigned in February, the board and search firm Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates (HYA) held a series of focus group meetings, interviews with key stakeholders and community forums to help identify six “desired characteristics” the new superintendent should have.
Durso said he doesn’t expect the board to hold another series of community forums on the superintendent search this time around.
“I don’t think the information that we got last time was only indicative for that search,” Durso said. “I think all of those things that we were looking for before we’re still looking for.”
The board officially resumed its superintendent search in October, using the same search firm under the same $35,000 contract.
Durso said he couldn’t talk about whether the board has identified a list of specific candidates, but said “I think we will be well in advance of really what the deadline is of July 1. I really can’t see it going into May and June. I don’t see it going deep into the end of the school year.”
Last May, when the board’s “preferred choice” for the job dropped out amid opposition from community leaders, the board named school system administrator Larry Bowers as the interim superintendent.
At the time, Durso and then-board President Patricia O’Neill said the relatively late start to the search process meant they might have missed out on top-tier candidates who had already taken or considered new jobs.
“Getting geared up with that and kind of cutting the timeframe for us down quite a bit, one could maybe say it was a bit rushed,” Durso said. “This time, we’ve had a bit more time. We’ve had a chance to really look at how we want to proceed.”
