Whenever a public organization does a broad search for a new leader, it balances the requirement to conduct its operations in public with the desire to make personnel decisions with a reasonable degree of privacy considerations for those who will not be offered the job. Both Freedom of Information Act and Open Meetings Act considerations come into play when organizations look to keep parts of their internal decision making and deliberation process obscure.

Here is some perspective on how organizations in a variety of states have done searches for superintendent of schools positions. It focuses on those organizations, like the Ann Arbor Public Schools, which have hired search firms like Ray and Associates to assist them with the task; it also focuses on the things that can go wrong in a process when independent observers are removed from the vetting and decision making process.

Framing the question

Is the process better if it is conducted in part out of the public eye, so that experts can get a chance to quietly vet some of the candidates before they are presented to a public board?

What can be legally kept from public view under FOIA and Open Meetings Act laws? Note that this may be different from state to state.

Do better candidates apply for the job if they are not named during the search? The concern is that people looking to apply for a position who already had a job would be discouraged from applying if their name were to be released to their home district, and thus the application pool would be smaller and perhaps less qualified.

Does the screening firm do a good job of vetting candidates if the screening is done in private, before the candidate is presented to the school board and the public for approval? Note that this can be hard to determine, because the impulse is to blame the screening firm for a board's decision to hire a candidate who did not work out.

Ann Arbor selects Ray and Associates from among five search firms

The Ann Arbor School Board picked from five firms to interview in the search for a new superintendent:

"The five firms are Michigan Association of School Boards; Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates of Rosemont, Ill.; McPherson and Jacobson, LLC of Omaha, Neb.; Ray and Associates of Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and David Kinsella & Associates, which is based in Ann Arbor."

The firm that was selected was Ray and Associates. This his how the firm describes itself on its web site:

"Ray and Associates, Inc. is a professional organization that specializes in school executive leadership searches. The firm has been in the school executive search business since 1975 and has established an outstanding reputation for recruiting outstanding candidates that match the expectations of the Board and community. We have also been extremely successful in recruiting women, minorities and non-traditional candidates for school districts."

Ray and Associates has posted the Ann Arbor Public Schools superintendent position,, noting that the application materials have not yet been developed.

Does hiring a search firm shield the board from disclosure?

The discussion on the superintendent application in this week's school board meeting was reported on by AnnArbor.com:

"The applications wouldn't be subject to Freedom of Information Act requests as long as they were the property of Ray & Associates, (Deb) Mexicotte told the board. That fact seemed to prompt some trustees to want access to the applications.

Trustee Simone Lightfoot said she wants access to the applications, not to pick her own candidates and favorites, but to check that the firm is doing the things the board hired it to do.

"I want to verify that we did a national search and want to see if we were diverse (in the process)" she said. "If I am being held accountable for this process, which is not in place yet, I want to know that I did all that was expected of me to do."

Superintendent search: Oakland, California schools

Ray and Associates was hired in 2009 to help conduct a search for the Oakland, Calif. school system. Reporter Katy Murphy covered this for the Contra Costa Times; this story describes the balance between openness and privacy that characterized that search:

"I’ve heard from other education reporters that Ray and Associates (the Iowa search firm hired to help OUSD find a permanent leader) requires most school districts to withhold the names of its superintendent candidates until the final selection is made — except in states such as Florida, which have more open public records laws. I understand why the district wouldn’t want to announce everyone who had applied for the position, as it might discourage top candidates from applying. But what about the finalists?"

The risk of a failed search: Kentucky Board of Education search

Every so often a search goes bad. This 2009 story recaps a dispute in Kentucky when the candidate selected for the position quit after only a few days on the job.

"You will recall that the state refused to pay bills submitted by Ray and Associates, the consulting firm that conducted a failed education commissioner search that produced Barbara Erwin. State officials said the consulting firm conducted an "unsuccessful and discredited search" marred by a lack of thoroughness and accuracy in checking the candidates' backgrounds."

Not every search works out, of course, and after the fact you can always come up with a rationale why.

The risk of a failed search: Willow Run Community Schools

In February 2007, the Willow Run Community Schools hired the search firm MASB to help them look for a new superintendent. MASB helped them pick Doris Hope-Jackson, and when she was hired the Northwest Indiana Times reported on the hiring, giving Hope-Jackson's past history of previous job troubles:

"In 2003, the District 149 School Board placed Hope-Jackson on remediation after just about seven months on the job following her hiring in July 2002. The board's action led to Hope-Jackson filing a federal lawsuit that was eventually dropped after the district agreed to a settlement."

Searches for new leadership that only involve the public and the press after the decision has been nearly finalized run the risk of not giving an independent body enough time to do due diligence on the candidate's previous work history. Hope-Jackson was fired in September 2010, and lawsuits are pending.

The risk of an incomplete search: missing information on a lawsuit

The Journal Star of Lincoln, Neb. reports on the results of a search there for a superintendent where board members were forced to scramble at the last minute to see details of one of the candidate's backgrounds which was not disclosed by the search firm. The American Civil Liberties Union sued over the status of the Palmer High School Gay-Straight Alliance student group in Colorado Springs; the lawsuit was settled in 2005, the year that the candidate in question left their superintendent position:

"The board hired Ray and Associates, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, search firm to help find candidates. The firm offered recommendations to the board on those it thought would be best matched."

Media seeking search records under FOIA: Memphis, Tennesee

It is typical in the news business to see an organization's desire to keep a process under wraps as a red flag to request those very same records. In May 2008, the Memphis Commercial Appeal sued the school system there to ask them to release the names of candidates:

"The complaint asks a Chancery Court to order the school district and the Iowa-based search firm Ray and Associates to produce the names, titles, resumes and application forms of those who sought the district's top job. The district denied an open records request by The CA seeking the information."

In this case, the newspaper won this case under Tennessee FOIA law. Note that every state FOIA statutes are different, and also note that I don't know the details of what caused this ruling, only the results. The June 2008 followup from the Commercial Appeal:

"Chancellor Walter Evans this morning ruled that records of all applicants for the recent vacancy for superintendent of the Memphis City Schools are public records and should be provided to The Commercial Appeal. The chancellor's ruling came after the newspaper filed suit against the school board which provided access only to records of the five semifinalists selected by Ray and Associates, the Iowa-based company hired by the board to conduct the search."

How do you measure a successful hire?

There's a lot at stake when hiring a new superintendent; the tone and direction provided by the school board makes a big difference in determining how the hiring process is done, and by extension what sort of candidate is selected.

No part of a search can be guaranteed. The more of the process is hidden from plain sight, the more the opportunity for surprising revelations before the contract is signed, or (worse) found out only after the final candidate has taken the job.

Edward Vielmetti writes the FOIA Friday column for AnnArbor.com. Contact him at edwardvielmetti@annarbor.com.