Sycamore district hires firm for superintendent search

Less than two weeks after the Sycamore school board authorized a mutual separation agreement with former Sycamore superintendent Steve Wilder, the board has voted to hire a national firm to search for his replacement.

Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, a national firm that school board members referred to as HYA, was selected out of a field of three prospective firms, according to Sycamore Community School District 427 documents.

The district will pay the firm an $18,450 consulting fee and a $1,000 contracting fee, according to the terms of the letter of agreement.

The school board decided to contract HYA in a split 5-2 vote, with Christian Copple and Beth Marie Evans voting against. Before the vote, Copple noted that HYA wasn’t the cheapest option.

School Exec Connect submitted a letter of agreement requesting $16,900 for consulting services and up to $1,800 in expenses to be covered by the district. The Illinois Association of School Boards gave the district a proposal for a professional services agreement for $9,400, but would charge $1,500 per consultant per day for semi-finalist interviews.

“It seems like IASB would be the more cost-effective one to go with,” Copple said. “They’re looking at Illinois specifically. I don’t know if having a national pool to draw from adds value.”

Marie Evans said IASB was going to be her first choice, but was moved by the board’s discussion.

“It sounds like most people on the board want HYA, and I’m fine with that too,” Marie Evans said before voting against a motion to hire HYA.

Cole Regnery, news to the board after a successful election campaign in April, said he thought HYA wasn’t significantly more than the other proposals. He also said he was more impressed by HYA’s level of service.

“I’m of the opinion that HYA’s higher retention rate puts them to the front to begin with,” Regnery said. “They also have unlimited focus groups that you can engage the community with.”

Alex Grados said he agreed with Regnery.

“So we would pay a bit more, but we would also get a heck of a lot more,” Grados said.

Alan Zantout, who voted for the HYA professional services agreement, said he thinks outlining what the district is looking for in a new superintendent will be an important part of the search process.

“I think we’d probably all agree that Sycamore is a pretty special place; we feel it’s kind of magic in a bottle,” Zantout said. “We really need to make sure that we define what we’re looking for, what’s really important for the community ... really define that so that it’s not a corporate robotic approach.”

DeVito said he thinks the key task for the board is to hire the best superintendent.

“To do that, we have to really make sure we hit all the notes on the stakeholder events and the community piece too,” DeVito said. “My hope is that by the time the decision comes to the board, it’s really like abundantly clear who is a really good pick.”