During the Garfield Re-2 School Board regularly scheduled meeting at Rifle High School on Dec 11, the board gave an update on the search for the new Superintendent. 

The board chose McPherson & Jacobson, LLC as their spearhead into the search and gave them some guidelines on what they expect in the next year. Superintendent Heather Grumley announced this fall that she plans to retire June 30, 2025.

“We did give…some of our search criteria, we discussed the compensation,” said Britton Fletchall, president of the Re-2 school board. “One of our big goals after Christmas break is to start doing stakeholder meetings. We’re hoping those start Jan. 7.”

Fletchall said they’re hoping it will be a full day of representatives from McPherson & Jacobson meeting with staff and eventually ending that day with a couple community meetings. 

“We did speak a little bit more and I did visit with some other board members,” Fletchall said. “One of our goals is to have an additional stakeholder meeting in there also, so that people who might not be able to hit us, even though we’re offering them two opportunities to the public…to give opportunities for people to come in.”

Fletchall gave examples of perhaps having a meeting after a football game in the library of the school where the game is or an event of that type on different ends of the district to give more opportunities for people to attend if they didn’t get to the Jan. 7 meeting. 

“We’re really working with McPherson & Jacobson, really wanting to get input from the community and our staff,” Fletchall said. “We also talked with (Dr. Kenneth Haptonstall, consultant for McPherson & Jacobson) about…meetings that are always on there and how important it’s going to be to hear from our administrators as we go look for our next leader.”

Fletchall said McPherson & Jacobson will be at the stakeholder meetings or if some can’t make those meetings at all, have some online surveys as an opportunity for feedback. 

“Towards late January or early February, we’ll start some of the interview question surveys,” Fletchall said. “Part of the big thing from the stakeholder meetings will be the characteristics of our next leader, to try and get some of the input we’ve given them, to what the community and staff say, what kind of characteristics are we missing.”

Further down the line, when they’ve identified possible candidates, those candidates will come in to meet the staff of Re-2, tour the schools and go to community engagement meetings.

“We did talk about putting an actual superintendent search tab on our website,” said board member Cassie Haskell. “Everything that we’re doing for that with dates, anything with information regarding this would be under that tab on the website, so it wouldn’t be hard for people to find.” 

Grumley asked if she could work with someone from McPherson & Jacobson more closely so she could start scheduling meetings with various groups around Garfield Re-2.

“We don’t want to leave anybody out,” Fletchall agreed. 

While the board and current superintendent are not there to influence the decision of the new superintendent, Fletchall and Grumley said while they discussed, they want to make sure the logistics work out. 

“I felt really good meeting with McPherson & Jacobson the other night,” Fletchall said. “I think we’re in good hands. I think it’s going to be fast and furious starting Jan. 7.”