Editor’s Note: The focus group for the community and businesses has been moved from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. March 7.
FREDERICKTOWN – What characteristics do Fredericktown residents want in their next school superintendent?
Cheryl Ryan, director of board and management services for the Ohio School Boards Association, will search for the answer on March 7 through roughly hour-long focus groups in the Fredericktown high school commons.
The groups will be broken up by administration and central office, teachers in grades six through 12, teachers in kindergarten through fifth grade, classified staff and a final group open to community residents and business owners.
Fredericktown’s school board voted to retain OSBA for a permanent superintendent search during its December 2021 meeting, which was also when the board accepted the resignation of former supt. Susan Hayward.
The superintendent chosen as a result of this search is slated to start in summer 2022, following interim supt. Jim Peterson, who took over Jan. 3.
Ryan said she assisted with the district’s last superintendent search for Hayward and has been doing searches for OSBA for approximately 15 years.
While Ryan intends to provide some questions to the focus groups to guide thinking, attendees are ultimately allowed to share whatever thoughts they deem important for the search.
“We want to know what people believe are the biggest issues for this superintendent, the biggest opportunities in Fredericktown, maybe what they perceive as challenges,” Ryan said.
“But a lot of times the focus groups will also key in on the kinds of characteristics that people want in a school leader like this — what they see as important for this person to have as personal characteristics and also as experiential or professional characteristics.”
Regarding more topical issues, such as COVID-19 policies, Ryan said they will not be the focus, but attendees are allowed to bring them up.
For those who cannot attend the focus groups in person, Ryan said there will likely be a digital form posted online for people to submit answers to specific questions and provide general input, although a form of that nature is not available at this time.
The focus group discussions will not be recorded nor will attendance be taken, Ryan said.
“I use the old fashioned chart paper and markers methods so that people can see that I’m basically recording exactly what they say,” Ryan said. “And then I transcribe those notes and give that report to the board so that the board can understand what their communities are saying and how similar or maybe different it is from what they shared.
“Oftentimes, there are not things that are vastly different from the board’s perspective, but we provide all those notes to the board.”
The deadline to apply for the superintendent’s position is March 18, about two weeks after the focus groups. The focus group schedule is as follows:
Monday, March 7 at the High School Commons
2 p.m. Administration and Central Office
3 p.m. Grade 6-12 Teachers
4 p.m. Grade K-5 Teachers
5 p.m. Classified Staff
7 p.m. Community and Businesses
