Between the Comprehensive Plan update and the recent letter released by the school board, public calls for input are in the air on Bainbridge Island.
The BI district’s school board is doubly tasked with assessing the performance of acting superintendent Amii Thompson and seeking an official appointment for superintendent in the coming year. Typically, input on the evaluation and the hiring process for superintendents are restricted to board members, who are elected leaders, but this year the district is doing it differently.
BISD is taking a leaf out of recent Bainbridge city officials’ book and soliciting public comment on the superintendent hiring period. It’s not just in the interest of transparency, though that is a factor, say board president Mark Emerson and vice president Kelly Cancialosi in a co-signed letter to the community.
In December of 2023, amid a budget reckoning and sudden vacancy at the district’s top level, the board stated that it would conduct a national search for a new superintendent late in 2024. In January, Thompson was named to the interim post, then became acting superintendent in May. Should BISD proceed with its stated plans, she would be considered for the permanent role, along with other potential candidates, but her work may have spoken for itself, wrote district officials.
“We want to weigh the cost of an extensive superintendent search when BISD faces profound financial challenges. If, either way, our conclusion would lead to the same outcome, then a full search seems unjustified,” Emerson and Cancialosi say in the letter. The “outcome” is a decision to renew Thompson’s contract.
Between Sept. 27 and Nov. 8, the public is invited to complete a survey that ranks state-determined attributes of a strong superintendent, then offer their opinion on what they’d like to see in the district’s leader. Responses will be compiled by the responder’s relationship to the district as either a staff, family or community member.
At the Sept. 26 board meeting, Thompson defined eight goals for the superintendent role that she and the school board agreed upon, and discussed ways in which her own performance reflected them. Standards include collaboration with the board, meaningful engagement of families and community, development of curriculum and professional development of staff, to name a few.
“When you look at [these], if you can’t do all of these, then you’re having a hard time being an effective superintendent. You can’t have just one or two of these and still be successful in the role,” Thompson said.
Thompson has consistently championed values like transparency, mutual trust and accountability during her tenure, officials say. She hopes that those values remain important to the superintendent, no matter who it is.
“We’ve talked about, since I took this position, about building trust, knowing that we need to reestablish trust with staff and with our community, and I think that really starts with accountability, and showing that over and over, and modeling vulnerability. I think it’s really important to talk about what I’m working on, what I’m reflecting on and areas in which I want to grow,” she said.
