It’s not every day that our school gets a new principal. Near the end of last school year, principal Jay Pearson announced his decision to become executive principal at the regional level. Immediately following this decision, the selection process for the new principal began. Rank & File has been covering the process since the summer through our website.
In the following feature, Rank & File takes an inside look at how the county searched for Pearson’s successor.
Fewer than half of the chairs are occupied, but the cafeteria is surprisingly crowded—that is, for a stormy Thursday afternoon in early July.
School is out, but a hub of parents, faculty and students are sitting in rows of stiff blue cafeteria chairs, fidgeting awkwardly as they wait for news.
Dr. Fabio Zuluaga, the assistant superintendent for Region 2, faces the crowd, distancing himself from the podium. Beside him is Michael Parker, a representative from the Department of Human Resources.
It is clear immediately what, or rather who, everyone in the room is here for.
“I’m going to be honest: We are not going to select another Jay Pearson, or a Jay Number Two,” Zuluaga clarifies, and is met by collective Awwws and understanding laughter.
A voice in the crowd jokingly shouts, “Why not?”
After over nine years at Marshall, Pearson, named 2014 FCPS Principal of the Year, was moving on to be the Executive Principal for Region 2.
As a result of his departure, the position of Marshall’s new principal was up in the air.
Parker, a seasoned professional, reassures the audience: “Dr Zuluaga, I know, burns the midnight oil reading and reading and reading all of the input sent to us.”
As described, the process of selecting a principal would be (surprisingly) not far off from turnitin.com or any other educational protocol.
Applicants would need to submit via email by July 15, Tuesday night at midnight.
“When the position closes at Tuesday night … I go to bed at about 10:00 p.m. I’ll check and there won’t be anybody there,” Parker says. “I get up at about 5:00 a.m., and there will be about 20 [new] people that have applied for the position. They’re all up getting their resume just perfect before they submit it so it’s a pretty cool thing to see.”
From then on, the applications would be compared to the community input.
A group of candidates would be selected to be interviewed by a panel of community members (students, teachers and faculty), selected with Pearson’s assistance.
“We ask them a couple of questions. I try to avoid making it into an interview,” says Zuluaga. “We’re not selecting the U.S. Supreme Court Judge.”
The panel would then conduct a 30-minute structured interview with each candidate.
“Many times the panel members will say, ‘Wow. Every one of these candidates that you’ve put before us, I would’ve been happy to have as the next principal of Marshall high school.’ That’s our goal,” Parker says, adding jokingly: “Our goal is to make the panel members’ jobs as difficult as possible.”
The process, though systematic, sounds weirdly humanizing.
“I will be there to calm down the candidates because it’s a very nerve-wracking experience,” Parker says, noting that the experience is “pretty daunting.”
The candidates would even be required to (gulp!) complete a 30-minute writing sample, which the panel members would be equipped with during their session.
Despite the thorough explanation, Parker and Zuluaga are still fielding questions left and right.
“I promise you we’ll find a great leader with great skills,” Zuluaga says. “If I don’t feel good about it, we’ll stay with the interim [principal] for a little bit longer, and conduct a national search.”
_________________________________________________________________________________
As it turns out, a national search wasn’t needed. Jeffrey Litz, a longtime member of the Marshall community, stepped up. Looking for someone to fill Pearson’s shoes was no easy feat, especially for a school like Marshall; who would’ve thought that our new principal was just down the hall?