Board Of Education Scores New Superintendent
May 15, 2008
By Tammy R. Lawson
MC Sun Staff Writer
Likened to a baseball game, five candidates stepped up to the plate last week, and one was able to hit it out of the park.
The Marshalltown Community School District Board of Education unanimously voted Monday to appoint Dr. Marvin L. Wade as new superintendent effective July 1st, replacing Dr. Harrison Cass who will step down the end of June.
Wade, a former Iowa resident, has been a superintendent for eight years in Keenesburg, Colorado, with a total of 13 years in the Weld Re-3J Community School District. As well, he served as principal for the Clay County School District in Kansas from 1992-1995 and as a special education advisor from 1990-1992. Wade earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Colorado State University in 1979, an Educational Specialist Degree in School Psychology from the University of Northern Colorado in 1983, and his Doctorate in Educational Administration from Kansas State University in 1995.
Board President Adrienne Macmillan said even though all five candidates were extremely qualified, communicative skill was one of the differentials between Dr. Wade and the others.
“We felt he was a very effective communicator, and not just with a singular group, but with multiple groups,” she said. “One of the criteria for the Board of Education was to find [someone] that could lead the District through a strategic planning process, and when it came to that part of our interviewing, Dr. Wade, by far, pretty much hit a home run as to how he was going to approach that, along with the experiences he had to support it.”
“I am very happy about it,” Wade stated by telephone from his home in Colorado, thrilled to be the chosen one out of 18 applicants. “I’m sure that the other candidates were good and I wish them the best of luck in whatever they’re doing, but at the same time, I really wanted this position, and I want to be a part of the Marshalltown Community School District. My wife Kathy and I are looking forward to being part of the Marshalltown community.”
Wade added he was very impressed that the Board has very high expectations, and “not only are they going to expect a lot from me, but from the community and themselves to step up so we can accomplish some great things for the betterment of the students. I’m really excited about it.”
The process to find the new super was done in collaborated fashion over three months which included hiring the search firm McPherson & Jacobson to collect applications and put them through vigorous interviews in order to narrow the field to five finalists. In the home stretch, several focus groups (represented by community members, parents, teaching staff, students, businesses, central office staff, and building administrators) interviewed the five candidates in five days before the Board rendered its final choice Saturday afternoon.
But some in the community questioned why the District engaged a search firm to assist in finding a new superintendent instead of initiating the selection locally.
“As Board members, we all do other things; we have full time jobs out there that we attend to, we raise kids, and so forth,” remarked Macmillan. “The expertise and professionalism that McPherson & Jacobson brought into this process was phenomenal. They really made themselves an extension of our educational community and worked with us in a very detailed level to help work through our selection criteria. It really made our job very easy in the fact that we got 18 total candidates at this time of the year and with the vast majority having solid superintendent experience, it is a credit to their firm.”
In all, the Board was pleased how the community and focus groups rallied around choosing the new leader, exhibiting a team effort, as well as spirit. Macmillan concluded, “It truly demonstrates that whole adage about how it takes a village to raise a child, and this was it.”
Marshall County Sun© Copyright 2008
