Moses Lake School Board members met with representatives of their superintendent search consultant, Northwest Leadership Associates during a special Wednesday afternoon meeting.

The Moses Lake School District position is drawing attention in a competitive market for academic executive staffing, said Sergio Hernandez of NWLA.

“We’re seeing a lot less movement right now or more retirements. In Oregon, currently, there are 40 openings for superintendents. In Washington, our organization, the Washington Administrators Association, is predicting that’ll probably be somewhere in the range of 50, maybe even higher than that, openings in the state of Washington,” Hernandez said.

Hernandez and his associate, Bill Jordan – both of whom are retired school superintendents according to the NWLA website – said the pool of candidates they are looking at for MLSD includes quality candidates who they are confident will provide the district with a strong pool of potential superintendents, despite the current competitive environment.

Jordan outlined the process moving forward for identifying and interviewing candidates, as well as special measures to ensure transparency and an opportunity for community members to provide feedback. In an anticipated special executive-session-only meeting Feb. 16, the board will receive an update on specific candidates. An additional meeting on March 2 will identify specific candidates to interview.

Once candidates are identified, they will attend interviews March 8 and 9. During those 50-minute interviews, 27 members of the community, a dozen of whom are MLSD staff, will observe the proceedings. Each interview will have about a dozen questions, Jordan said. After those interviews are done, the board will receive written feedback from observers regarding the applicants’ responses to interview questions.

After the initial round of interviews, the board will review public feedback and identify which candidates will be offered full-day interviews. Those will involve the candidates meeting with various staff, students and community members in formal and informal sessions, including a community meeting that allows some members of the public to get to know the candidates and provide additional comments to board members.

School board members will select the community members who participate in the hiring process. School Board President Kevin Fuhr said he felt it was important to identify a diverse and knowledgeable group of community members for the process.

“Because I also wanted to make sure that we get some folks from the Latino community,” Fuhr said.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 39% of the city of Moses Lake identifies as Latino.

Once those second interviews are completed, the MLSD Board of Directors will hold private final interviews on or around March 15. The final interviews will be unscripted and held in executive session, Jordan said. After those interviews, he and Hernandez said they expect the board will be able to make a final hiring decision.

Fuhr said he was glad the process was moving forward and he was glad the search was drawing the attention of quality candidates, if not a lot of candidates.

“We’re looking for the quality candidates that are really interested in Moses Lake, and we’re really pursuing them hard,” Hernandez said.