MARYSVILLE — The search for the Marysville School District’s new superintendent is heading into its homestretch, and as he has throughout the process, MSD Board President Chris Nation is encouraging community members to take part in the selection.
The six candidates whom the Marysville School District Board of Directors have selected to move forward to the first round of preliminary interviews on Saturday, March 23, are Dr. Becky Berg, Dr. Carl Bruner, Dr. Tony Byrd, Michelle Curry, Dr. Dennis Haddock and Jon Holmen.
“Each interview should take about an hour and 10 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes each,” Nation said. “If we start at 8 a.m., we should be able to wrap it up that Saturday by 5 p.m. If members of the public want to attend and submit feedback to the Board in writing, we’d only ask that they do so for all six candidates, since that’s only fair, but they can drop in to observe them at any time during the day.”
According to Nation, the Marysville School Board will ask questions of the candidates in the MSD Service Center Board room, and narrow the selection from six semifinalists to three finalists that evening, based on those interviews, so that the three days of finalist candidates’ interviews and visits to the district — from Monday, March 25, through Wednesday, March 27 — will devote one full day to each candidate.
Marysville School District staff, parents, students and community members will be able to meet each day’s candidate during open forums scheduled at 11 a.m., 4:15 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., again in the MSD Service Center Board room.
In the wake of the applicants’ files being screened on March 15, Nation reiterated the Marysville School District’s commitment to conducting its superintendent selection process as transparently as possible.
“This is not just the decision of the Board, but of the community as a whole,” Nation said. “We wanted to make sure that the community and school district staff were involved in this process, because the new superintendent will be a leader to both, hopefully for years to come. Through observation and feedback, we hope the community will help us choose a superintendent who fits the needs of our community, because if that person doesn’t understand our relationships, especially with the Tulalip Tribes, they might not get done what’s needed. Everyone has to be on board for this.”
The Marysville School District Service Center Board room is located at 4220 80th St. NE. The full schedule for the candidate visitations is posted on the MSD website at www.msvl.k12.wa.us. For more information on the search process, contact Jodi Runyon by phone at 360-653-0800 or via email at jodi_runyon@msvl.k12.wa.us.
