Email shows concern for Cape schools' search process

A Feb. 15 email from a member of Cape Girardeau Public Schools Board of Education to the board’s president indicates behind-the-scenes questioning of the board’s process to hire a new superintendent.

Board member Paul Cairns sent the email to Matt Welker, and in it he lists several concerns about the process to replace superintendent Neil Glass, who announced in late January he would retire from the district at the end of the school year.

His concerns:

• “Qualified candidates didn’t know we are hiring (Our search didn’t create sufficient awareness among the qualified candidate pool and this lack of awareness negatively impacted our number of applications)”;
• “Qualified candidates have no interest in leading CGPS (All interested/qualified candidates were well aware of our superintendent opening but decided the role in CGPS was unappealing for one reason or another)”;
• “Qualified candidates didn’t believe our external search was authentic (Something about our process suggested that we weren’t actually interested in external candidates, as an internal candidate had already been identified, and applying would simply be a waste of time).”

“I think we owe it to the CGPS stakeholders to understand which bucket we’re in (or if there is a more appropriate 4th bucket that I’m missing),” he wrote.

Reached by phone Monday, Feb. 27, Cairns said he still has those concerns.

“Regardless of what we do next in the process ... those questions are still unanswered. This is a really big opportunity and a really important one for our community,” he contended.

Further, Cairns said Glass has weighed in heavily in support of an as-yet unnamed internal candidate.

“I believe that any superintendent search that begins with the outgoing superintendent surprising the entire BOE at the end of January in offering his/her retirement effective (June 30), without any previous discussions alluding to that timeline, is already off to a rough start. When that’s immediately followed by him/her saying, ‘I’ll do ANYTHING in my power to ensure that (XYZ internal candidate) is hired as the next Superintendent!” ... I personally feel like it’s even more problematic,” he wrote. “I don’t feel comfortable saying we had a legitimate hiring process if it only yielded a single external candidate and a single internal candidate ... and again, my view on that has nothing to do with the quality of either of our two current candidates. In my view, it simply speaks to a process, rightly or wrongly, that didn’t yield appropriate results.”

Monday, Cairns reiterated his concern over the alleged comment.

“It made me wonder if the process was going to work as it was supposed to,” he said.

In response to a request for comment, Welker said board members are following their agreed-upon process.

“Our focus remains to be on what we can control and finding the best candidate to lead our district. While we are a board of seven with our own opinions and interpretations, we are following the steps that we set together as a board,” he explained.

Kristin Tallent, communications director for the district, said she was not aware of Glass making the supportive comment quoted in the email, however, “It would be very common for someone to provide a reference for an internal candidate if one felt the candidate was qualified.”

Timeline

Board members set up an aggressive timeline to replace Glass, limiting applications to those received by Feb. 13. They initially planned to hire his replacement by the end of February, but scheduling issues forced them to schedule interviews with the two candidates Tuesday, Feb. 28.

The board’s regular February meeting was Monday, Feb. 27.

In the request for records, made Tuesday, Feb. 21, the Southeast Missourian asked one question and for particular records: “Other than the Feb. 9 closed session meeting and since their January board meeting, have school board members had other communication that would be subject to public notice regarding the superintendent search process? Under the state Sunshine Law, we are requesting copies of any communication, electronic or otherwise, disseminated by or to board members regarding the ongoing superintendent search.”

The night of Friday, Feb. 24, Beth Poyner, school board secretary and custodian of the records, provided several emails and said the remaining documents would be available by 4 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 28.

Full text

The full text of Cairns’ letter:

Cairns, Paul

Wed, Feb 15, 2023 at 11:52 AM

To: “Welker, Matt”

Cc: “Poyner, Beth” , “Phegley, Missy” , Kyle McDonald , Jared Ritter , Casey Cook , VeronicaLangston

Matt -

Thanks for the note.

I’ll offer my thoughts.

Given the small number of applicants, I believe we should interview candidates when all board members can be physically present, like on 2/28, as previously discussed.

I also want to express my significant concern relative to the lack of interest in this position. I say that not as a negative reflection on any current applicant, but rather to express my great surprise that there weren’t more interested parties for a job of this magnitude.

Out of curiosity, I called MSBA’s Mike Parnell yesterday to ask him what trends they’re seeing relative to applicant pools for open Superintendent positions. He said it had been at least three years since they’ve seen less than 5 applicants for any of the Superintendent roles that they were involved in helping to recruit for/fill. As examples, he said their Normandy search had 22 applicants and he expected Mehlville to have more than a dozen.

This conversation made me pause to question, why isn’t there more than ONE external candidate applying for this position? I believe this is a very relevant and important question that we need to soberly assess as a district and a board.

I can think of only 3 real reasons:

1) Qualified candidates didn’t know we are hiring

(Our search didn’t create sufficient awareness among the qualified candidate pool and this lack of awareness negatively impacted our number of applications);

2) Qualified candidates have no interest in leading CGPS

(All interested/qualified candidates were well aware of our Superintendent opening but decided the role in CGPS was unappealing for one reason or another);

3) Qualified candidates didn’t believe our external search was authentic

(Something about our process suggested that we weren’t actually interested in external candidates, as an internal candidate had already been identified, and applying would simply be a waste of time).

I think we owe it to the CGPS stakeholders to understand which bucket we’re in (or if there is a more appropriate 4th bucket that I’m missing).

The last time the district went through this process, the Board ended up hiring their 3rd choice candidate ... we don’t even have 3 candidates. (I obviously wasn’t on the board at that time, so I don’t mean that as a slight to Dr. Glass or anyone else, it’s just how things happened.)

Although this is my first time in this particular process, I want to make one additional observation:

I believe that any Superintendent search that begins with the outgoing Superintendent surprising the entire BOE at the end of January in offering his/her retirement effective 6/30, without any previous discussions alluding to that timeline, is already off to a rough start. When that’s immediately followed by him/her saying “I’ll do ANYTHING in my power to ensure that XYZ internal candidate is hired as the next Superintendent!” ... I personally feel like it’s even more problematic.

I don’t believe feel comfortable saying we had a legitimate hiring process if it only yielded a single external candidate and a single internal candidate ... and again, my view on that has nothing to do with the quality of either of our two current candidates. In my view, it simply speaks to a process, rightly or wrongly, that didn’t yield appropriate results.

Just my thoughts as 1 of 7 board members.

PC