The Griswold School District’s Board of Education met Thursday evening to discuss and move forward on, filling the Superintendent’s position. The Board discussed three options. The one that gained the most favor, was sharing a Superintendent with two other districts in a 40-40-20 time split, with Griswold and the other, larger district having the Superintendent 40-percent (or two days) per week, and a smaller district sharing that person one-day per week. It would also involve a one-third cost-sharing contract. The arrangement would be for one-year, to start, with an evaluation taking place between late this fall and March 1^st, 2017.

Griswold School Board meeting 4-7-16 (Ric Hanson/photo)

Board member Steve Baier said since December, he’s been contacted by, or made contact with, over dozen different school districts to discuss options, but some of the ones he thought were “pretty obvious,” didn’t work out. One of the districts wanted a 50-50 split. Baier said he and Board member Rob Peterson said two, unidentified districts, wanted to talk about an arrangement.

Baier said he met and Peterson met with representatives of the two boards and the potential Superintendent candidate, Tuesday night. Those two boards will hold separate meetings this Sunday night and next Monday. Baier said the other districts seemed to be on-board with the proposal. He said also, “The candidate in question, I would characterize, as being enthusiastic about taking on this challenge.” Peterson spoke about the candidate via conference call during Thursday evening’s meeting, and said that candidate (who was not identified), demonstrated Tuesday that he’s very well prepared for change, if it’s approved.

One of the districts the candidate currently oversees, has 130 students. The other is a little better off, and not facing a financial squeeze. Baier acknowledged, the Griswold Board’s original line of thinking was having a traditional, 50-50 sharing arrangement with another school district, but the financials just don’t work out for the better with that option.

The arrangement would save the Griswold District $127,000 per year, in a time when they’re looking at cutting $500,000 from the budget. More information on the possible three-way Superintendent sharing will be released after the other boards have met.