As reported earlier on the Steller Flash, Principal Harlod Green has announced his retirement at the end of the school year.  The following information is the latest on the selection process, which is expected to result in the announcement of a new Steller principal on April 25:

• Wed. April 6 at 6 PM – The Steller Parent Group, with the assistance of many students, hosted a community café “principal attributes” evening.  This event was held in order to provide parents, students, and staff an opportunity to discuss the Steller principal selection process and to develop lists of desired principal attributes and open-ended interview questions that will help us best learn about the candidates.  The evening was very successful, with over 50 students, parents and staff members coming together in a low-key, small table discussion format to engage all categories of the Steller community in the principal selection process.  Recommendations compiled from this meeting were passed on to the Steller Selection Advisory Committee.  Many thanks to Alyse Galvin, Michelle Brannon, and Jennifer Hall-Jones along with students Liam, Riley, Mickey, Bridget, Jonas, Tziporah, and Haileigh for their leadership in the creation of the Principal Attributes Community Café.

• April 7 at 2:15 PM – As requested by the ASD, the Steller Selection Advisory Committee held its initial meeting on April 7th.  High School Executive Director Mike Henry and his assistant represented ASD. Steller participants included 3 students, 4 teachers, 2 certified non-teaching staff (or 1 counselor, 1 nurse), 1 administrative staff, and 1 parent.  There were no community members at the meeting.

The committee developed a list of desired principal attributes, building on input from the Community Café.  They also selected the single question that each candidate will answer before the community as a whole.

• Friday April 15 Meet and Greet 6:30 PM – All are welcome and encouraged to attend.  At its April 7th meeting, the Steller Selection Advisory Committee and ASD representatives came up with a basic process for the Meet and Greet with principal candidates:

– Anticipate 3-4 principal candidates

– Each candidate will have 5 minutes to respond to a single question developed by the Selection Advisory Committee, while remaining candidates wait for their turn to respond to the same question in another room.

– Upon completion of this questioning, each candidate will rotate through 3 classrooms (or 4 if there are 4 candidates) for 15 minutes, where a less formal question and answer session will be held.  In this way just the principal candidates will need to move from room to room, rather than requiring the entire Steller community to move,

– The current plan is for parents, students and staff to each have a room and a focused set of questions.  This isn’t meant to be exclusive, but just a means to create themes for questioning of the candidates.  Others would still be welcome if they want to listen to another group.  As part of that process, each group (staff, students and parents) will be developing or selecting their questions up until the Meet and Greet. Groups can use the list of questions developed in the Community Café on Wednesday to create their lists.

– each question and answer session will be facilitated by members of the Steller Selection Advisory Committee to help keep the process organized.

– ASD will provide forms for Meet and Greet attendees to provide feedback on each candidate. These will be collected by ASD at the end of the Meet and Greet,

– At the end of the Meet and Greet, the Steller Selection Advisory Committee will meet informally to discuss each group’s initial feelings about the candidates,

– The Steller Selection Advisory Committee will meet again on Monday April 18th at noon to develop its recommendation to bring to the ASD at the committee’s 2:15 PM meeting with the ASD.

– At the 2:15 April 18th meeting with the Steller Selection Advisory Committee, ASD will provide the collated information from initial survey forms completed by the community during the Meet and Greet.  After review, the committee will make its final recommendation to ASD.

• April 20 – Executive interviews by ASD

• April 22 – Superintendent interviews top candidates

• April 25 – Selection approved by the Anchorage School Board and announced to the public.

If you have questions or would like to discuss this process you can contact:

Bob – vandergriff_robert@asdk12.org,

Joe – jbanta@mac.com, or

Eliza – bookoflizla@gmail.com