Comments on: AAPS To Visit Finalists’ Home Districts

By: Dave Askins

Dave Askins — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 15:58:24 +0000

For readers following updates about the superintendent search in this comment thread, but not elsewhere on the website, AAPS sent an email to the media earlier this morning indicating that one of the three candidates, Shelley Redinger, has withdrawn. [link] Redinger has instead accepted a job as superintendent of the Spotsylvania County school system in Virginia. The scheduled start times for the forum and interviews will remain the same.

By: schoolsmuse

schoolsmuse — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 14:24:43 +0000

Glenn, I understand the need/desire to treat all candidates equally. But I don’t understand this–if the site visits were important to do before (at considerable expense to the district), why are they not important to do now?

By: Julie

Julie — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 02:19:00 +0000

Thank you! You guys are awesome, and thank you for the thorough article on the candidates.

By: Dave Askins

Dave Askins — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 21:03:35 +0000

From the text of the email sent by AAPS around 4 p.m. Monday, Feb. 28:

The Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education invites the community to participate in a public forum to select the next Superintendent of the Ann Arbor Public Schools.
A question and answer session with the candidates and the community will be held on Friday, March 4 from 6-8:30 p.m. at Pioneer in the cafeteria annex.
The community is also welcome to attend the board’s final interview with the candidates on Saturday, March 5 beginning at 9:30 a.m. at the Balas Building in the main conference room.

By: Dave Askins

Dave Askins — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 16:42:15 +0000

Re [5] 11:40 a.m. update: The board hopes to have the week’s logistics pinned down by 1 p.m. today.

By: Dave Askins

Dave Askins — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 16:30:19 +0000

Re: [5] Julie, we’re working on pinning that down.

By: Julie

Julie — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 14:29:31 +0000

I just received the AAPS News, and it is now stating the forums are on Saturday at 1:00. Do we know which is accurate — Friday or Sat?

By: Glenn Nelson (School Board Member)

Glenn Nelson (School Board Member) — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 21:59:14 +0000

To Julie and others who are interested,

I received information on arrangements a few minutes ago.

The community forums will begin on Friday evening (March 4) at 6 pm. We have not yet arranged for a place; we are thinking they might be at Pioneer. Please check back on the place.

The final interviews with board members will begin at 9:30 am at the Balas Building on Saturday, March 5.

Board members will deliberate on their preferred candidate to engage in negotiations very soon after interviews on Saturday. We might take a break for lunch.

All three steps are open to the public. We board members are especially hopeful citizens will come to the forums on Friday night and register their reactions to the candidates. These reactions will be shared with board members on Saturday prior to their deliberations on the preferred candidate.

Thanks for the kind words, Julie.

Glenn

By: Julie

Julie — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 16:07:21 +0000

Thanks for your work on the school board, Glenn. And thanks for the update here. Do you know yet when the community forums will be scheduled — time, date and location?

By: Glenn Nelson (School Board Member)

Glenn Nelson (School Board Member) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 22:27:44 +0000

The site visits will unfortunately not occur.

On Monday Christine Stead and I were at the airport, and Susan Baskett was traveling to the airport, when we learned the flight to Des Moines (our first site visit) was cancelled. Christine and I spent several hours trying to rearrange a schedule that would allow our site visit team to visit all three sites and that would fit the schedule of people in the three districts. Christine and I were in touch with Susan, Deb Mexicotte (president of the board), and Bill Newman (leader of the team conducting our search) as we worked on this — and got help from all of them. All of us on the board agreed, well before this time, candidates would be treated as nearly identical as possible thoughout the search process. We knew we needed to schedule all three candidates or cancel the visits of all three.

We were unable to accomplish the rescheduling as hoped. After several hours in a busy airport packed with travelers whose travel plans were disrupted and with airline employees trying to help under difficult circumstances and with us subsisting on airport food and coffee, Christine and I drove back to Ann Arbor.