A third proposal came from the Ohio School Board Association but was not picked.
Three board members — Karen Wick-Gagnet, Dion Sampson and Will Smith — voted against moving forward with interviews. Four board members voted for it. Smith said he objected to using a search firm and said the firms had primarily worked with districts that were almost twice the size of Dayton.
“If you’re going to search, put it out there, let people come in, get the community involved,” Smith said.
Smith said he felt any amount of money the district paid to find a new superintendent was too much.
Wick-Gagnet said she felt using a national search wouldn’t find what the board wanted.
“Time is of the essence and that we keep moving forward and not to use too much of our time and energy doing the work,” she said. “A national search round to me seems like a waste of time and energy.”
But board president Chrisondra Goodwine said the school board needed the help.
“We don’t have the bandwidth to do it ourselves,” she said.
Board member Gabriela Pickett suggested bringing in a search firm to speak with the community, which she said could gather some ideas about what people want the next superintendent to look like.
The members said they felt around $20,000 was a reasonable amount of money to pay a search firm after Goodwine asked for a ballpark number.
In the meantime, Dayton Public has appointed David Lawrence as the interim superintendent of DPS, and he is making $160,000 a year, up from his previous contract of $135,000 as business manager for DPS.
Centerville superintendent Jon Wesney made about $165,000 last school year and Kettering superintendent Mindy McCarty-Stewart made about $175,000, according to a recent Dayton Daily News review of superintendent contracts and pay. Former DPS superintendent Elizabeth Lolli made $215,250 in her last year as superintendent.
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