Red Clay looking for community's input on new superintendent

Red Clay School District has scheduled a series of public meetings and created an online survey so community members can provide input as it begins the process of replacing outgoing Superintendent Merv Daugherty, who is leaving the district Nov. 1. 

With nearly 17,500 students, Red Clay is the largest school district in Delaware. Input from the community will be used to help write a job posting for the superintendent position, which the board hopes to have filled by Feb. 13. 

“The board is trying to create an open and transparent process with lots of opportunity for community input,” said Catherine Thompson, president of the Red Clay Board of Education, in a statement. “We view that input as critical to hiring a superintendent who can best continue Red Clay’s preeminent position in the state.”

BACKGROUND

Red Clay superintendent heading to Virginia fornew job

Red Clay school district names interimsuperintendent, launchessearch

The school board has also hired the Institute for Public Administration at the University of Delaware to help find a new leader.

During five focus group meetings, attendees will be split into groups to discuss a series of questions covering district strengths and areas of opportunity as well as desirable qualifications for the position. One spokesperson from the group will be asked to report out on the opinions of those present.

Meetings have been scheduled as follows:

• Monday, October 1 at 4:30 p.m., Stanton Middle School, 1800 Limestone Road
• Wednesday, October 3 at 7 p.m., Cab Calloway School of the Arts, 100 N. DuPont Road
• Thursday, October 4 at 3 p.m., Distance Learning labs at McKean, A.I. and Conrad high schools
• Tuesday, October 9 at 7 p.m., John Dickinson High School, 1801 Milltown Road
• Wednesday, October 10 at 7 p.m., Warner Elementary School, 801 W. 18th Street

Community members are also encouraged to take the online survey, which should take less than 10 minutes to complete. It will be on the Red Clay Consolidated School District website until October 11. 

All responses are confidential and will remain anonymous; some comments may be consolidated to clarify common themes.

Visit surveymonkey.com/r/rcsuper to take the survey in English.

Visit surveymonkey.com/r/rcsuper_span to take it in Spanish. 

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Contact Jessica Bies at (302) 324-2881 or jbies@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @jessicajbies.