The Sedona-Oak Creek School District will be accepting applications to fill the post vacated in September by outgoing Superintendent Dennis Dearden until Wednesday, May 31, via the Arizona School Board Association’s website.
The SOCSD Governing Board is also seeking public input concerning what qualities community members, parents, teachers and students want through a survey at the top of the district’s sedona.k12.az.us website.
The search is being handled by the ASBA, which will be promoting and screening applicants after tasked with the process by the SOCSD Governing Board during its meeting on Wednesday, May 10.
The announcement states that the eventual finalists to go before the local school board and Sedona at a community forum towards the end of June, with the new superintendent expected to step into the role on Saturday, July 1.
“Since Dearden arrived, we have made so much progress, and it is a different place,” SOCSD Governing Board President Randy Hawley said. “We have a strategic plan, a good team where they work together.”
Hawley said some of the qualifications that the board is looking for include teaching experience in the public school system, success as a school principal and experience in some administrative district-level role, as well as knowledge of school finance and experience in bond programs, given that SOCSD also moved to have a budget override for voters this November at their meeting.
“Normally [we’d] put up the posting and give people probably a month or so to apply,” Hawley said. “But because of the lateness of this in the school year, and because there are 10 other superintendent openings in the county, we felt we needed to expedite the process so that we don’t lose some good candidates to other districts that have already started their process.”
Superintendents in Clarkdale and Cottonwood are retiring this summer.
The listed salary range for the job is $120,000 to $130,000, “plus a performance pay component.” This places the offered compensation at the top of the range for superintendent openings within Yavapai County, especially considering that SOCSD is a relatively small district.
The next SOCSD board meeting will be held on Tuesday, June 13, at 4 p.m. at the Sedona Performing Arts Center.
