ELLSWORTH – Ellsworth Community School District residents/parents are being invited to complete a community survey about the qualities and skills wanted in a new district superintendent. Superintendent Barry Cain will retire after 16 years in the role in June.

At the Feb. 12 Ellsworth School Board meeting, Cheryl Gullicksrud, a search and governance consultant with the Wisconsin Association of School Boards laid out the search process for the board, offering two timelines to follow. This is Gullicksrud’s fourth year of working with school districts on superintendent searches. She said even though the job hasn’t been officially posted yet, she’s had three inquiries already. The board directed Gullicksrud to conduct a community survey, which went live last week. The survey deadline is Friday, Feb. 23 and it can be found at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/EllsworthComm2024

Gullicksrud also conducted a staff focus group Monday, Feb. 19 during a staff in-service day. The survey and focus groups are meant to gather information on what people are looking for in the next superintendent, such as skills and values, plus what people believe the district’s strengths are.

The information gleaned from the surveys and focus group will be used to create a candidate profile, which will be used to screen applicants.

“The point of both is to ask people’s input, to involve people in the process,” Gullicksrud said.

People will be asked to select the top six personal characteristics they would like the next superintendent to have (for example, approachable, transparent, empathetic, honest, ethical, communicator, etc.) They will also be asked to choose and rank leadership styles, specialized skills, areas of expertise and challenges and strengths of the district.

The board also mulled over whether to hold an open community forum, but many expressed concern that a public forum wouldn’t be well-attended.

Cain, who will not be involved in the process, said he recommends economizing the timeframe because other school districts will be hiring too.

“You don’t want to lose out on candidates,” Cain said. “You want community input, no doubt about it, but there’s also people who don’t know what a superintendent really does. I still have people asking me what I do with my summers off.”

He recommended conducting a focus group with district office staff because they work closely with the superintendent.

Gullicksrud said she has already concluded three superintendent searches this year. WASB will not screen any applicants out, so the school board will have access to all who apply. She said it’s typical to have six to eight first-round candidates, and narrow that number to three or four for final interviews.  

“WASB takes care of the scheduling and notifying candidates if they get it or don’t,” Gullicksrud said.

Board member Steve Mark advocated for holding a community forum, while other members felt an online survey was enough.

“It would strongly behoove us to talk with the public,” Mark said. “We know from issue and issue and from time to time, there might be 10 people or if it’s Covid related, there might be 100 people. I think it’s important for us to involve both. I think it’s just a matter of our responsibility to involve the public as much as possible. At least we as a board, we can say we’ve done everything we can to solicit the community participation. It might be small but at least we’d offer the option.”

Applications will be accepted for the position Feb. 23 through March 15. Candidates for first-round interviews will be selected by the board at 6 p.m. March 18, followed by first-round interviews April 1 and 2. Final interviews are tentatively scheduled for April 9 and 11.

Board members Susan Beck and Michael Petersen were absent.

Other business

• The board approved the International Club trip for March 2026, in which students will travel to Costa Rica and Panama, led by social studies teacher Anne Pechacek.
• The board approved, on recommendation from the Curriculum Committee, phy ed standards alignment, a science course change (biology will be switched from 10^th grade to ninth grade, while pre-chemistry and pre-physics will move to 10^th grade), a change in the high school speech requirement, and the addition of the requirement of a personal financial literacy class with the Class of 2028.
• The board voted to increase the middle school choir teaching position from .66 to 1.0 in order to allow for an increase in individual student lessons, improvement to student schedules, and the addition of seventh grade general music and adaptive music. This will return staffing to what it was prior to budgetary cuts in the early 2000s. About 70% of the EMS student body is in choir.
• The board approved the following personnel changes: Hiring Dan Hayden as custodian, retirement of elementary teaching assistant Lynn Loesch, appointing Beth Friedrichsen the EHS boys tennis coach and Diana Lange as a mentor, and transferring Amber Kruse from special education teaching assistant to full-time district-wide substitute teacher.