Wausau School Board to review superintendent search-related responses this week

Damakant Jayshi

The Wausau School Board will review new superintendent search-related survey and focus group responses at a special meeting on Thursday.

The board will also hold a closed session to discuss the themes from the two responses that, according to Wausau School District officials, will help the board outline “the skills and characteristics they’re looking for in candidates for the superintendent position.” The school board is expected to develop the application questions for the superintendent candidates and discuss the first round of interview questions.

Superintendent Keith Hilts will retire after the academic year concludes. His replacement is expected to assume responsibilities on July 1.

Last month, the board established a tentative timeline in the search for the new superintendent. It expects to conclude the search and award a contract by mid-April.

Thursday’s meeting is next in the several steps that the board’s consultant, an expert from the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, has outlined.

The focus groups comprises four different sets of stakeholders in the school district – administrators, teachers, support staff and the board. These groups met last Thursday, the last day of the survey that was open to the community from Jan. 26.

A week after the review of the responses, the school district will post the notice with the job description. While the district website still shows the original timeline of a month for the application duration, the board shortened the timeline to three weeks last month. The application period is set to end on March 15. 

The applications will be reviewed in late March and the finalists – expected to be around five or six candidates – are likely to be invited for the first round of interviews on April 1 and 2. The identity of the applicants will remain confidential until the first round of the interviews. That will be followed by reference checks.

After this is completed, the final list of candidates will be made public. There will be an open forum with the finalists which will be open to the community too. Following the public meeting and a final round of interview, the board is expected to make its decision around April 11 or 12 and announce the name of the next superintendent of the district, on or around April 22.