Lakeland Names 5 Candidates for District Administrator Position

Monday, December 31, 2007

LUHS names five finalists for replacing Dailey as LUHS district administrator
Candidates Todd Kleinhans, Jim Ellis and Robb Jensen have local ties

Eric Johnson
Editor

Monday, December 31, 2007


Todd Kleinhans


Jim Ellis
In their ongoing process to find a successor to outgoing district
administrator Mike Dailey, Lakeland Union High School on Friday, Dec.
21 released the names of five finalists.

Selection process interviews will begin on Thursday, Jan. 17.

The deadline to submit applications for the LUHS district
administrator position was Nov. 30.

According to the LUHS job posting, candidates must hold, or be
eligible for, a Wisconsin District Administrator License. Prior
administrative experience was listed as "desired."

Qualities for the "successful candidate," the job posting noted,
include "demonstrated collaborative leadership skills in current and
former administrative positions," a track record of "research-based
decision making," a "high level of integrity," and "the vision to take
a successful school district to the next level."

Dailey will retire at the end of the current 2007-08 school year, with
his position opening July 1, 2008

Candidates named

Three of the finalists for LUHS district administrator are well-known
to the area:

• Todd Kleinhans, principal at 981-student LUHS.

• Jim Ellis, district administrator for 550-student
Minocqua-Hazelhurst-Lake Tomahawk Elementary School, one of four
Lakeland area elementary schools feeding students into LUHS.

• Robb Jensen, a former Rhinelander School District superintendent now
serving as principal of 483-student Nekoosa High School in Wood
County.

The other two finalists come from outside the Lakeland area:

• Warren Baugher, who has served in several administrative capacities
with the 21,000-student Racine Unified School District, including
postings as principal of Henry Mitchell Elementary and E.H. Wadewitz
Elementary and stints as assistant superintendent for
curriculum-instruction and assistant superintendent of the district's
secondary division. Earlier this year, Baugher was one of six
finalists for superintendent of the PreK-12 Cochrane-Fountain City
School District in western Wisconsin.

• Scott Winch, superintendent of the Stratford School District, an
817-student PreK-12 district in Marathon County.

Board president comments on

candidate pool

Interviewed early Friday afternoon, LUHS board president John Lisowski
said the district had received application packages from "fifteen
qualified individuals."

LUHS' Board Negotiations Committee, he said, had performed "very good
qualitative analysis" on all fifteen potential candidates, eventually
narrowing the pool down to a "workable" field of five finalists for
the district administrator position.

"These five final candidates rose to the top," Lisowski said. "They
represent an interesting cross-section..."

He noted that it was "important" for the Board Negotiating Committee
to have a diverse pool of finalists encompassing a variety of job
criteria including education and administrative backgrounds, as solid
grounding of professional experience and, in some cases, local
knowledge of LUHS and the Lakeland area community.

Said Lisowski, "These five have a nice cross-section of some of those criteria."

The interview process

Moving forward, he said the LUHS board had created "two separate,
distinct panels exclusive of the board" representing all four feeder
elementaries, LUHS staff and administrators, and various community
groups, including the Lac du Flambeau tribal community.

"We thought it was very important to have these individuals get a
flavor of the community as they meet with the panels," Lisowski said.
"It's important for these candidates to have a sense of community
involvement in the high school. They (the candidates) are very much
interviewing us as well."

Candidates will interview with the two panels and also with the LUHS
board. Lisowski said the board is "very interested" in hearing
feedback from the panel members on the five candidates. It is hoped
that the interview process will be completed in February.

"We want to have the position hired as soon as possible," Lisowski
said, noting the actual hire date for the new district administrator
will be contingent upon several factors including candidate
availability and performing required background checks. "Ideally, we
want the new district administrator named and available prior to the
exit of the old district administrator. Clearly, we'd like to have the
individual in place before Mr. Dailey leaves LUHS."

Whichever of the five candidates gets selected, Lisowski said he was
confident that the next district administrator will be able to tackle
challenges like declining enrollment and capitalize on "positive
momentum" made at LUHS in areas including student achievement and
various curriculum adjustments, including the coordination of core
curriculum needs with LUHS' feeder elementaries.

"I'm very hopeful that our next superintendent will be able to lead
Lakeland in a positive direction," Lisowski said.