The significance of last night’s beauty contest for headhunting firms at the School Board meeting was not the search firm that was easily selected but that the Head Hunt formally is under way.
For the community, who was chosen – a Northern California agency that specializes in superintendent shopping – and what the process will be – as short or long as the client desires – are inconsequential.
What counts is that the resigned Supt. Patti Jaffe is down to her final 94 days, and the School Board expects to have her replacement on the job by Tuesday, July 3, the day after the holiday.
For Ms. Jaffe, who has spent her 42-year career in the community, last night’s three-hour exercise must have felt awkward –like a horror movie, as if she were watching her soon-to-be ex-husband publicly auditioning candidates to be his next spouse. (On the contrary, Ms. Jaffe and her husband are happily married.)
The Board intensely screened four groups of headhunters, including the Cosca Group of Northern California. They led the last search for the School District two years ago, for Dr.Myrna Rivera Coté’s successor.
This sometimes-dreary process was no threat to be the surprise hit show of the Culver City season.
Anybody Here?
Only two persons were in the Council Chambers audience at the start. While various active school moms checked in throughout the evening, at the unpulsating end, the crowd again had shrunk to Jerry and Janet Chabola, quintessential School Board meeting regulars.
The vetting process carried a dog-and-pony sheen. Each applicant professed to be the best on earth with an invulnerable record to verify the claim.
Before the much-decorated Dr. Wendell Chun, Executive Director of the vaguely named Education Leadership Services, was chosen to lead the Super Search, starting momentarily, three other teams of superintendent hunters were allotted 20 minutes apiece to bray about their nonpareil achievements.
Whether it was psychological or otherwise, he who spoke last was the winner from here to Alabama.
Others Were Not Deficient
The first three candidates did not show any dents, but Dr. Chun, a diminutive but learned and staggeringly articulate retired super, knocked out the Board.
Physically, and only at the outset, he was a decided underdog. The other applicants dispatched tandems to the podium. Dr. Chun, who turns out to be an adjunct professor in USC’s doctorate in education program, started out rhetorically dazzling ‘em, and then just kept amping up.
Around the room, people were turning to each other saying, “He’s the guy.” Simultaneously, lights were flashing above the heads of School Board members.
Virtually everyone clicked to the same excited conclusion.
“Dr. Chun has a passion for what he does,” Board member Laura Chardiet told the newspaper, “and it resonated authentically.”
“All of the firms had a lot of similarities,” said Board President Karlo Silbiger. “For me it came down to two factors:
• “How much freedom they gave the Board in developing a process that we feel comfortable with (not what they feel comfortable with) and
• “How much experience and connections those in front of us have in terms of the needs of our particular District.”
Mr. Silbiger did not want his colleagues to be forced to cede authority.
“I liked that Dr. Chun and his firm give the Board complete control of the process,” he said. “Nothing is off the table.
“I also liked that Dr. Chun and his associate are both active professors in doctoral programs in the L.A. area, teaching prospective superintendents. Not only does he have years of experience doing searches for (the California School Board Assn.) and this firm, he has the current connections to find us great candidates.
“I think that the Board made it very clear in our questioning that we want someone in place by July 1. That is not an easy deadline to meet. But all firms seemed convinced that we could make it if we started right away.”
Dr. Chun’s anticipated fee, $22,500, which may be reduced, compares favorably to what the last headhunter team charged the District.
