Garfield Re-2 School District superintendent finalists will be interviewed Friday
The Garfield Re-2 School Board heard from representatives from the firm leading the superintendent search during their regular meeting on Feb. 26.
Current superintendent Heather Grumley is retiring at the end of the 2025 spring semester and the board has employed McPherson & Jacobson to search for a new superintendent.
So far, they have found four qualified candidates from Colorado for the position:
- Dr. Drew Adams from Louisville
- Mr. Kirk Banghart from Salida
- Mr. Timothy Renn from Canyon City
- Dr. Matthew Snyder from Cheraw
Board member Cassie Haskell was nervous about some of the candidates interviewing at other districts.
“I’m a little hesitant on keeping a couple of them that have…been selected by some other school districts, that makes me a little nervous that we get our hopes up and then they pull out because they’re going a different direction,” Haskell said. “However, we hire first, before the other school districts so I’m a little more at ease with that…but that is kind of a red flag for me.”
However, board member Chance Jenkins said he preferred having four candidates and the board eventually decided to bring in all four for the interviews.
Dr. Ken Haptonstall and Dr. Christy Sinner from McPherson & Jacobson will attend and run all the interviews and they discussed with the board inviting spouses or family members.
“In my experience, having somebody’s spouse come to a system, knowing it’s a commitment…knowing what the family’s getting into is very important, so I think inviting them to be a part of that,” Haptonstall said. “Whether you do a dinner or whatever you decide to do, I think that’s a very valuable thing for you all, wanting to meet them and wanting them to meet your community.”
This Friday will be filled with stakeholder groups providing feedback to the board while they interview the candidates. The board discussed part of the process being like a town hall-style interview, where the crowd can also ask questions.
“During the meet-and-greet, we do give out index cards where people can write the names on it and give feedback to you, we take that and type that all up for you…to keep you guys on track with everything,” Sinner said.
Haptonstall then discussed how the stakeholder groups were formed since there were questions on how they got determined.
“We got 48 people who applied to be a part of that (stakeholder groups), so I took that and created an algorithm that ensured that you had a community person that wasn’t a parent, a parent, a classified, a certified, an administrative staff and a student,” Hapstonstall explained. “We put them all in there, and it spit those out, so they were randomly selected. We actually only had one student apply, but we had a second student call a board member, so we wanted to make sure you had a student in each group.”
The community will have an opportunity to meet the candidates from 4:30-6 p.m. on Thursday, followed by the Town Hall questioning at Rifle High School from 6-7 p.m.
The superintendent interviews will be taking place this weekend by the Garfield Re-2 School Board at Coal Ridge High School beginning at 8:50 a.m.
Following the candidate being chosen by Saturday, if the board has to extend their executive session, Sinner and Haptonstall will facilitate a workshop between the board and the new superintendent to establish performance objectives and they will discuss the contract in the future as well.
