Two finalists in the District 202 superintendent search have been selected, the Evanston Township High School Board of Education announced Tuesday.
Their names were not released but the finalists will be available to answer questions at a community forum from 1:15 to 3:15 p.m. Sunday in room N112 at ETHS. Reaction forms for each candidate will be available for attendees to fill out. The school board will review these forms during the decision-making process.
D202’s outgoing superintendent, Allan Alson, will be retiring in June after 14 years as ETHS’s leader.
The D202 superintendent search began with the selection of the Iowa-based search firm Ray and Associates to aid the school board in identifying and screening potential candidates.
In October, when the school board and firm put together a timeline for the search that included community forums to discuss desired characteristics of the next superintendent, deadlines for applications and candidate interviews.
“The most important decision a board of public education makes is the selection of a superintendent of schools,” school board president Mary Wilkerson wrote in a letter to the Evanston/Skokie community. “The Board intends to work collaboratively with the community to determine what skills, personal attributes and values our next superintendent should possess.”
According to the sequence of steps listed on ETHS’s Web site, 124 candidates from across the country contacted Ray and Associates about the position with 56 of those candidates completing the application process. After undergoing screening and investigation, 10 semi-finalists were selected.
At a Jan. 23 board meeting, Wilkerson said the board received a “sufficient number of applicants” and would be discussing the search more at a closed session the following evening.
Alson implemented several programs during his years as D202’s superintendent.
One of these programs was the formation of the Minority Student Achievement Network, a nationwide coalition of 24 suburban school districts with high levels of minority enrollment that are working to boost minority academic achievement.
“It was (Alson’s) vision to call together the superintendents of schools struggling with the achievement gap,” said the network’s executive director, Rossi Ray-Taylor. She said it was Alson who secured the location for the network at ETHS and lent the energy and support needed to get the network started.
Alson helped to create the Minority Student Achievement Network in 1999 and has since served as the elected president on the Governing Board.
Alson said that he will stay active with the network and will remain on the Executive Committee and the Governing Board as past-president, a position that Ray-Taylor said was created for him.
Art Rainwater, the superintendent for Madison Metropolitan school district in Wisconsin, will be the new network president Ray-Taylor said. He was elected at a meeting in December and will take over the position this summer.
Reach Anna Prior at [email protected].
