CAMAS — Camas community members will soon have a chance to weigh in on their school district’s hunt for a new superintendent.
The Camas School District has planned two “listening posts” with staff, students, families and other interested community members this week. One was Tuesday evening at Discovery High School. A second is set for 9:30 a.m. Saturday at Lacamas Lake Elementary School.
Doreen McKercher, the district’s communications director, said the events are “opportunities for community members to provide feedback and listen to other voices.”
“Listening posts are embedded in our culture and have served us well in the past,” McKercher said. “The goal is to gather as many voices, and in multiple formats, as possible.”
Longtime Camas Superintendent Jeff Snell announced his resignation in March and took over as the superintendent of Vancouver Public Schools in July.
In April, the Camas School Board appointed Doug Hood, then the district’s director of elementary education, to be interim superintendent for the 2021-22 school year.
The school board also voted in April to hire the Omaha, Neb.-based search firm McPherson & Jacobson, which recently led the search for Vancouver’s new schools head, to help find Camas’ next superintendent.
According to a salary chart provided to the school board Monday, the current $187,600 salary for Camas’ schools superintendent is below the salary for superintendents in many similarly sized and smaller Washington school districts.
McKercher said Camas School Board President Tracey Malone will work with the district’s business services director, Jasen McEathron, to make the salary range more in line with similarly sized school districts.
According to the district’s current timeline for finding a new schools superintendent, the district will advertise the superintendent job opening nationally on Oct. 1; hold focus groups for stakeholders and conduct an online “thought exchange” for community members in early to mid-October; set a Nov. 3 deadline for applicants; interview selected candidates in late November and early December; host site visits for top candidates the second week of December; and announce the new superintendent in mid-December.
