October 7, 1997FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Trost)
RE: BOARD SELECTS SEARCH FIRM TO BEGIN
SUPERINTENDENT SELECTION PROCESS
The Board of Education today announced that as an outcome of a competitive bid process Korn/Ferry International was selected as the recruitment firm to conduct a nationwide search for a new superintendent to replace retiring Dr. Bertha O. Pendleton.
Korn/Ferry's work will be led by Dr. Ira Krinsky, a managing vice president who heads the firm's Education Specialty Practice. He will be working with a specially appointed five-person search committee chaired by Richard A. Collato, president and CEO of the YMCA of San Diego County. Collato has been working with board members on the search process since his appointment in July.
Fourteen search firms nationwide competed in the competitive bid process which resulted in the selection of Korn/Ferry. Korn/Ferry International is the world's leading management consulting firm specializing in executive recruitment. Krinsky is a veteran of 25 national superintendent searches in districts that include San Francisco, Los Angeles, Riverside, Pomona and the San Diego County Office of Education as well as Portland, Tucson, Houston, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Miami and Montgomery County, Maryland. Krinsky also has conducted searches for the University of California and California State University systems.
Krinsky will work closely with Collato to establish a comprehensive process for parents and members of both the educational and business communities to provide input and guidance into the search for a new superintendent and the profiling of the perceived success characteristics needed in the new superintendent.
Being considered as a method for community input are community forums, small group meetings, a survey or surveys and other activities during the months of October and November. Krinsky will work with the search committee and to develop the best process to recruit outstanding superintendent candidates for consideration.
Collato also chairs the Citizens Committee to Profile the Next Century Superintendent, a larger group currently being appointed that will develop a profile of skills and vision the next superintendent should possess. This group will include about 15 community leaders representing a cross-section of San Diego, including district employees.
Committee members will be receiving input from leaders in education, business, government, higher education, the nonprofit sector and community organizations as they work to develop the profile. Parents and community residents also will have opportunities to express their views. The board will select the committee members in the near future.
"I have great confidence in Rich Collato and his committee and am confident that he and Dr. Krinsky will do an outstanding job for us," Board President Ron Ottinger said. "We look forward to working with them as we move ahead in the process that will result in the selection of a superintendent who will lead this district into the next century."
"I am very pleased to be working with Dr. Krinsky," Collato said. "Together we will develop a process which will afford members of the community an opportunity to share with the citizen profiling committee their aspirations for our schools and the qualities we should be seeking in the new superintendent."
Krinsky is expected to begin his work immediately. Before joining Korn/Ferry in 1982, he spent 10 years in public education and served as assistant superintendent in Levittown, New York, and as deputy superintendent in Pomona, California. He has a doctorate from Harvard University.
San Diego City Schools is the eighth largest urban school district in the country with 167 schools and more than 136,000 students. Pendleton was appointed superintendent in June 1993 and will retire in June 1998.
