Lynnwood Elementary
PFT General Meeting
February 2nd 2006

LWE General Meeting
2/2/06

In attendance: Jennifer Sorensen, Marla Little, Cindy Bartlette, Dennis Thompson, Christine Kolstoe, Kim Pizzuto, Kristin Sterner, tom Deluca, Wendy Hough, Michelle and Micahael Durant, Nan Sul, Todd Parker, Mary Johann, Ken Nielson, Angela Lehert, George Lehert, Lisa Tsuji, Diane Nelson, Rikke Cross, Lisa Utter.

Starting wearing Black and Red on Fridays (after tomorrows blue/ green Seahawks day).
T –shirt orders will be extended.
Cookie Dough fund raiser for the spring, delivery on open house day. Money raised will go to the fence fund.

Ellen Kahan, assistant superintendent is here to discuss the process to find a new principal for the school as David Koyama is retiring at the end of this school year.

Ellen Kahan has worked with David 3-4 years and done a wonderful job. We will miss him.

The hiring process is complicated and detailed; as they want the best. In 2 parts of this process, parents have the opportunity to give input. 1/12 - This position has been advertised as an open position. 2/23 is the last date for candidates to apply. For openings such as this, the district generally has 40-80 applicants in the pool.

2/1 – LWE staff prioritizes traits/qualities/review hiring process.

3/1 & 2 – 2-3 LWE teachers and 1 administrator screen the applicants against a 7 Key points. Applicants can write 5-10 pages on the 7 key points. They are scored 0 (poor) to 4 (outstanding). From this pool, 5 to 8 candidates move on to the next step of the process.

3/10 - This step is the interview team which includes 2-3 LWE staff, 2 other staff (office mgr + 1 other), 2 parents, and 2 administrators. You can sign up to be one of the parents but must be available all day March 10th to interview and then discuss all applicants. From this process, the final 2 – 3 applicants are selected.

At this point, the applicants are announced. Before this it is not communicated.

3/14 - Site visit teams includes 1 LWE teacher, 1 admin, and one other LWE staff per finalist. They go evaluate this applicant’s work site, meet with co-workers, students, etc.

3/15 – Community forum. The applicants talk about themselves and then can answer questions. There is a feedback doc for the audience to score how well the candidate thinks on their feet. Some questions can be real life issues, etc. At this point the formal pieces of process are done.

Ellen does detailed reference checks. Also checks school district they came from and then some digging around, she makes a broader sweep.

If there is a reason to eliminate a applicant from the running towards the end of the process (ref check or site visit finds it), they wait until the end and role into the final decision making announcement.

3/16 - Dr Nick B, the superintendent and Ellen sit down and do final interview with finalists and make the final decision.

3/17 – Selection made and announced.

7/1/06 – new Principal starts. They will be in communication with the outgoing principal. There is a real effort to bridge administration.

Ellen Kahan requested us parents generate a wish list, what do you value in a school leader, what David has done well, what is important to this community, what attributes would we like to see in this position, etc. Each table read them out loud. We gave each list to Ellen.

What is principal’s retirement policy. School normally does this.

LWE PFT Secretary
Tracy Kendall