Superintendent applications open for Manatee County School District

In a special meeting, the school board further discussed its expectations and approved a new timeline.


The Manatee County school board held a special meeting on Tuesday to further discuss the details of the timeline and search for a new superintendent. Richard Tatem said good leaders tend to work in different industries, not just education, and wants the candidate pool to be as big as possible.
The Manatee County school board held a special meeting on Tuesday to further discuss the details of the timeline and search for a new superintendent. Richard Tatem said good leaders tend to work in different industries, not just education, and wants the candidate pool to be as big as possible.
Photo by Madison Bierl
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The search for the new superintendent at the School District of Manatee County has officially begun.

The posting for the superintendent position, which will pay between $220,000-$260,000, was posted to the School District of Manatee County website on June 16 at 5 p.m. 

“The website was live at 5 as we like to say,” said Bill Vogel, an independent consultant that will assist in the search. 

Along with Vogel, the school district is assisted by the Florida School Boards Association for the search. The team at FSBA consists of Andrea Messina, chief executive officer, Demetrius Rice, director of strategic operations, Debra Pace, a retired superintendent of Osceola County School District and Michael Gaudreau, a retired Seminole County executive director of secondary education. 

Both Messina and Vogel were involved in the last superintendent search in 2023. 

The school board discussed and finalized the timeline that they wish to work through as well as the qualifications for the superintendent candidates. 

On the qualifications list in the preferred category is “Experience in a school district with 20,000 or more students.” At the meeting there was some back and forth with the number, as to keep as wide a net as possible. They agreed to add the word “approximately” before 20,000 in order to not scare away potential candidates. 

“As you mentioned, it is preferred, not required,” Messina said. “But you all do have a large size district by national standards, so to manage that does require a certain level of leadership.” 

Florida School Board Association CEO Andrea Messina is leading the team in the search for a new superintendent.
Courtesy image

An additional quality they discussed and agreed to add stated “A demonstrated record of supporting parent choice and ensuring equitable opportunities and resources for all students, regardless of public school type.”

They also altered the phrasing on the third quality “Ensures that ESE, including gifted 504 students and ELL student needs are met” and added “state and federal policies and laws are followed” to the end. 

Heather Felton expressed her desire that the candidates have experience working in a school at any level — a teacher, secretary, substitute or any other position within a school in order to have the perspective on how schools work. 

“It is an entirely different animal than any other kind of business out there and that to me is extremely important that they understand that,” Felton said. 

The school board discussed whether or not they wanted the “Ten years successful administrative or leadership experience” to be specifically in the education field, or whether it could be some sort of corporate experience to qualify.

Spray said she would consider someone if he or she was a teacher for 10 years, a principal for 10 years, and then they had an offer at a corporate level somewhere else and ran that corporation for 10 to 20 years.

“If they're ready to come back and do this, I want to be able to consider that person,” Spray said.

“I'm for the biggest pool possible, but I do believe in my heart of hearts that it will be someone with an education background,” Choate said. 

They agreed to keep educational experience in the preferred section instead of moving it to required. 

Applications will close on July 16 at 11:59 p.m. Spray said she was an advocate for it to be closed at noon, but Messina expressed their reason for midnight was to account for different time zones and accommodation for the candidates' potential busy schedules. 

“Professionals who work a lot get things done in the evening when they get home from work, sometimes they'll finalize a few things,” Messina said. “It just gives the applicants a little bit of more breathing room.”

“It takes a day or two for us to process everything,” Messina said. “At the very latest you should be receiving those on Monday, but hopefully you can get them Thursday or Friday.”

The applications will be received by the Florida School Boards Association and forwarded to the IT department at Manatee Schools to be posted as received. 

On July 29, the board is to identify semi finalists for the position. School board member Charlie Kennedy questioned the process in how they are to narrow down their options if only one or two board members are for a candidate.

“My point would be, if we get to the 29th and there's a candidate that does not have three board members suggesting they move forward, my suggestion would be that person does not move forward,” Kennedy said. 

“I've seen other boards say, if a majority of my peers want this person, we'll go ahead and move them forward,” Messina said. “I've seen others with even one that has somebody articulate enough to convince others to say that person was on the fence for me, but if you really feel that strongly let's go ahead and keep that person in.”

From July 25-August 12, final background checks and community feedback will be conducted. FSBA will not only do background checks, but will also check Florida Department of Education certifications, social media and lawsuits. 

“It might not be that there's a controversial thing, but it could be that with the additional two weeks, you're looking at all kinds of work that they've done, and you're probably hearing from people in their community,” Messina said. “You go ‘These are the three that I'm locking in on.’ It gives you some space to have some additional discernment.”

On Aug. 12, the board will choose the finalists. Messina described the process of how they have decided on finalists in the past by using a tally sheet, moving forward the candidates that the most board members agree upon. 

August 18 and 19 will be the interviews ,with a community meet and greet on the evening of the 18th. 

Messina told the board that they have a great advocate in Vogel. 

“The board did a lot of pre-work that has moved this along, and I think we're in a really good place right now,” Vogel said. “We're meeting with the key staff people this afternoon to make sure they're up to speed on it and I'll be totally available to any board members at any time.”

“I want to say thank you so much for your confidence,” Messina said. “As your membership association, we're here to serve you and we're here to help you have a very transparent and clear superintendent search process.”

 

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Madison Bierl

Madison Bierl is the education and community reporter for the East County Observer. She grew up in Iowa and studied at the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University.

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