President Search Committee Named
Greetings Knights!
As a member of the Barstow Board of Trustees, I am delighted to serve as your search committee chair in our collective effort to onboard the next President of The Barstow Schools.
Since the first site visit by Educators Collaborative consultants André Withers and Carol Santos, we have been busy keeping on target with the search process goals and objectives. One of our first goals was to form the search committee. With gratitude to those board members who accepted the invitation to join, I am excited to share the members: Soni Patel, Board Chair; Mira Mdivani, Member-At-Large; Joel Brous, Immediate Past Board Chair; Greg Graves, Member-At-Large; Rob Rothhaas, Board Vice-Chair; and Jennifer Gille Bacon, Past Board Chair.
Among other responsibilities, the committee’s first major task will be to form a search advisory committee that I will also chair. Building on our goal to run an inclusive search, the advisory committee will help to expand our eyes and ears during the process, particularly at the finalist stage when we will host and interview finalist candidates, each over a two-day period. I hope to announce search committee members in September. We are preparing for André and Carol to visit Barstow again on August 22 and 23. During this visit, they will meet with a broad cross section of the Barstow community including teachers, administration, staff, parents, alumni and other stakeholders. Some of these meetings will be prescheduled for specific individuals and groups. Some focus group meetings will be formed around department, position function or programs, such as athletics, division heads international programs, Barstow Parents' Association or student government. Others may be formed as a mixture of folks representing various functional areas of the school. The final schedule and list of participants are still in development. All participants will be confirmed and notified before André and Carol’s arrival.
I cannot emphasize enough that in designing the search process, inclusion and transparency were among our top priorities. Your input is so important to us. While we know that André and Carol cannot meet with every stakeholder, it is possible for your voice to be reflected by completing this survey before Aug. 23. The themes from the survey results will help our consultants develop the Barstow Leadership Profile that will become the search committee’s roadmap for nominating the school's next President to the Board of Trustees. Hence, this becomes the search committee’s second major task – approving the leadership profile. We very much appreciate you taking the time to help us get that right!
I know you will join me in welcoming André and Carol back to campus. Here is a list of FAQs about the search process for your reference. This will soon be accessible under the About Us tab of the school’s website. We encourage you all to reach out to any member of the search committee, BPA President Lindsay Dutton or André and Carol with any questions about this process. Remember, you can reach me directly via president.search@barstowschool.org or even in person when you see me on campus.
Onward Knights,
Tiffany Simpson, Parent '27, '28, '33
Search Committee Chair
Search Committee Chair
