By Philip Haldiman

Independent Newsmedia

The Peoria Unified School District Governing Board is shooting for Jan. 25 to have an interim superintendent approved and for Feb 8 to have a consulting firm approved to find a permanent superintendent.

The governing board voted 3-2 to oust former Superintendent Darwin Stiffler, Dec. 7, for personnel reasons.

Chief Personnel Officer Carter Davidson said the district is working with the Arizona School Boards Association in filling the interim position. ASBA, which offers such services for free, posted the position on their website Jan. 9 and they will recruit candidates on the district’s behalf from within their network. The organization will respond to questions from applicants, board members, and district personnel, as well as collect and organize the applications.

For internal candidates, emails have been sent to district administrators, which include anyone in a chief role down to a director or coordinator role. Directors have also been asked to inform their staffs.

By not hiring a consultant to help with the search and working on its own, Mr. Davidson said the district is saving $2,000 and two weeks of time.

Applications have been submitted to ASBA, and Mr. Carter said he will start receiving them this week.

"I will bring all the applications that I receive to the board," he said. "I don’t think they will come with a scoring rubric, that will be something we will work on."

In the next week, board members will review applications in executive sessions and then set up interviews. After interviews, human resources will complete reference and background checks of the selected applicant.

Mr. Carter said that at a previous meeting, the board initially did not want the interim superintendent to be considered for the position of superintendent, to alleviate someone claiming favoritism in the process, to protect the district and make sure every applicant had a fair and equal opportunity. As a result, the job posting listed the position as interim only, with no opportunity to apply for the permanent position.

Ms. Knecht agreed the interim and the permanent superintendent should be separate — in addition to running the day-to-day operations of the school district in a temporary manor, the interim would be instrumental in helping the board navigate to a permanent superintendent.

"Therefore I think it wold be awkward and cumbersome if that individual was a candidate for the permanent superintendent. I see the interim as truly temporary with a different and unique role than the permanent superintendent."

However, at last weeks meeting, the majority of the board disagreed, so the job posting will be adjusted and the interim superintendent will now have the opportunity to be a candidate for the permanent position.

The governing board also approved a timeline for choosing a consulting firm to search for a permanent superintendent.