Call made for Cape school board to slow superintendent search process

Editor's note: The following story has been updated to correct the spelling of Mike Woelk's name.

Members of a conservative political group told Cape Girardeau Public Schools Board of Education members at their regular monthly meeting Monday night, Feb. 27, their process for hiring a new superintendent has flaws.

Mike Woelk, a member of We The People of Cape Girardeau County, a self-described "liberty watchdog group", addressed the board members at the meeting. He called for more transparency and time spent in the search for a new superintendent to replace Neil Glass, who announced in late January he would retire from the district at the end of the school year.

"Less than three weeks to search is outrageous for such a position," Woelk said.

He called for "one courageous public servant" to make a motion "to slow this down and do it right."

"We might not like your choice, but at least then the process will be transparent and ethical, neither of which are true right now," Woelk said. "But if you dig in your heels and insist on this current path, do not think for a minute that the citizens are going to go away."

In response, board member Veronica Langston said, "Some of the concerns the community is voicing, those are the conversations that are being had among board members." She said, since the interviews have been set for Tuesday, Feb. 28, she couldn't see how they could stop the process at this point.

Board member Paul Cairns said he agreed with Langston that they should stay the course.

"To me, the only fair thing to do is to hear the candidates we have, in the process we have put in place, and at that point we will have a decision to make whether or not one of those candidates is a person that will lead this district or not," Cairns said.

He said he was part of the unanimous vote for the current search process, but "I thought we were going to have a much larger pool of candidates."

"At the end of the day, if this process doesn't lead us, as a board, to a place where we're comfortable, I, for one, would be willing to restart this process," Cairns said.

Cairns also noted an email he wrote — questioning the outcomes of the hiring process — was published in the Southeast Missourian after a Sunshine Law request for records regarding the superintendent search. He said he hoped the email wasn't taken out of context. He said he wasn't commenting on the quality of either of the candidates and he didn't want to "impugn anyone's character" or "be disrespectful of people who work in this district".

The district has not identified either candidate for the position.

Board member Kyle McDonald read a statement in response to "the media and other emails received by the board," that said the board was "rushing through the very important process of hiring Dr. Glass' replacement."

"I would like to state factually that this is not the case," McDonald said. "With the exception of hiring an outside consultant, we are following the basic timeline utilized in the last two superintendent searches."

McDonald stated the "rationale to do the search ourselves was driven by the fact that we recently completed a very thorough, costly, and time consuming Continuous School Improvement Plan."

He said spending more money hiring an outside search firm would only provide the board members with information they already had.

He said he'd been on the school board for 17 years and had been a part of three superintendent searches. He said he believed the board made the correct decision to do the search themselves and asked for "trust that this elected board is doing what is best for our schools and for our students."