While school board members pick up the pieces of a financial mess left behind by Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent Keith Posley, who resigned this month with a hefty payout, they must also find his replacement.
It could take about a year for the district to find a new long-term superintendent. Here’s what we know about the process.
Superintendent Keith Posley’s resignation is effective June 30
Posley, who announced his resignation at the end of a late board meeting the night of June 3, signed an agreement that made his resignation effective June 30.
Posley didn’t say what he would be doing during the month of June, while he is still collecting his salary. After announcing his resignation, he immediately lost the responsibility of facilitating day-to-day operations. He is not listed as having any role in the district’s corrective action plan being overseen by state officials.
Posley was not present for the June 13 school board meeting, when board members approved a budget for the next school year. Board member Megan O’Halloran confirmed she hadn’t heard from Posley since he agreed to resign.
Posley will leave with a $160,000 severance payment. As part of the agreement, he and the school board agreed not to disparage each other.
Regional Superintendent Eduardo Galvan is running day-to-day operations
Immediately after Posley’s resignation, the school board announced that Southwest Regional Superintendent Eduardo Galvan would be supporting and facilitating day-to-day operations.
At a school board meeting Monday night, board members plan to vote on more specific powers that Galvan will hold until the district identifies an interim superintendent, O’Halloran said.
That could include allowing Galvan to make hiring decisions, O’Halloran said, though the school board also must approve hires. The district needs to hire staff for numerous key positions, including its chief financial officer and comptroller who both left this month.
The next step: Milwaukee School Board members will choose an interim superintendent
School board members have already begun looking for candidates to serve as the district’s interim superintendent before the board launches a national search for a more permanent superintendent, according to O’Halloran, who is taking a lead in researching best practices for the search.
Board members reviewed lists of possible candidates in a closed session meeting Thursday night, including suggestions from the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators and the Council of the Great City Schools, O’Halloran said.
Many of the candidates are retired superintendents or current superintendents who are about to retire, O’Halloran said. The next step is for board members to reach out to candidates to see who might be interested in the job and get more information about their credentials.
O’Halloran said she hopes the board will have a list of final candidates, which will be made public, by the end of June. The board will likely interview those candidates in closed sessions before voting in public on their pick, O’Halloran said.
Ultimately, there will be a national search for a more permanent superintendent
School board members have said they intend to launch a national search for a more long-term superintendent. They will likely hire a search firm this summer, O’Halloran said.
It’s a process that many Wisconsin school districts have been through recently.
The Madison Metropolitan School District hired Chicago-based Alma Advisory Group for its superintendent search, which concluded in February when the school board chose St. Paul Public Schools Superintendent Joe Gothard.
In Madison, Alma Advisory Group conducted surveys and held input sessions last fall with community members to develop the “leadership profile” of an ideal Madison superintendent, the Cap Times reported. The district posted the job opening in November and received nearly 60 applicants by January.
The school board in Madison conducted a first round of interviews behind closed doors, according to the Cap Times. They created community panels to interview finalists, and the district livestreamed those interviews.
In Milwaukee, Mayor Cavalier Johnson has already said he’d like to be part of those interviews, and O’Halloran said she would welcome his involvement.
“I want it to be a community-driven process,” O’Halloran said. “We have stakeholders from parents to community organizers, to students and staff. The next superintendent will impact the whole community so I would like to have representatives driving this process.”
Given the lengthy search process, and the possibility that candidates may be leaving jobs that run until June 30, O’Halloran said it’s possible the new superintendent wouldn’t start the job at MPS until July 1, 2025.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: MPS replacing Keith Posley; here are steps to find new superintendent
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