Community members offer input on qualities for leader
Staff, parents and students have come together to create a profile to best suit the community’s needs. A permanent principal will be selected in March.
February 10, 2015
The search is on for a new Akins High School principal as teachers, parents and students provide input on what they want the next leader to be like.
Kathy Ryan, Interim Associate Superintendent of High Schools, is leading the search process, which she hopes to complete by March.
Ryan led two meetings after school in January to collect information to build a desired profile for the next principal from faculty and staff as well as community members, parents and students.
“Everyone should have an input on how they want their new principal to be,” Ryan said.
On Jan. 15, Ryan and Akins staff met in the library to develop a profile of the next potential principal to serve here at Akins.
“I’m not the one creating the profile, the Akins community and staff will do that,” Ryan said.
On Jan. 21, Akins students, community, and Ryan met to give their input on the qualities that they would like to see in the next principal.
Student Council president Justin Hang said he wants a principal who will take innovative approaches to solving difficult problems.
“Great principals are also creative in their problem-solving and approach challenges with an entrepreneurial attitude,” Hang said.
One quality that was repeated frequently at the meetings was that the new principal must have some kind of administrative experience.
“Even though there was a lot of great qualities said, one that I found very important was that the new principal must understand all populations, and should also have some kind of experience already,” junior Kyrsten Woolf said.
Social studies teacher Cullen Haskins has helped coordinate the search process along with Ryan. That responsibility fell to Haskins because he serves as the faculty co-chair of the school’s Campus Advisory Council.
Haskins and special education teacher Raul Rivera, who was chosen via a lottery, will represent faculty on the committee that will interview selected candidates on Feb. 18.
Two Akins parents,Deborah Hoover and Tricia Gore, along with Ryan make up the remainder of the initial selection committee, which will interview the candidates and identify at least three finalists.
“I feel a responsibility to represent all of the other teachers, because we won’t all have a say,” Haskins said.
On March 2, the superintendent, chief schools officer and Ryan, will interview the finalists. The superintendent will recommend one candidate to the school district’s board of trustees to make a final decision.
Ryan said she hopes the selection process will be done by March; however, the new principal might decide to keep their current position until the end of school year.
UPDATE: The principal search process will not be finished to April, that is when we will find out who the new principal will be.
