State Board of Education seeks superintendent applications

The Hawaii State Board of Education has begun seeking applicants for the position of State Superintendent of Education.

The Board will be accepting applications until August 9. Visit the Board’s new website, www.hawaiiboe.net, and click on the “Superintendent Search” link. This is a dedicated page with background information about the superintendent search, details on how to apply, job description, a search timeline, and updates.

The Board is also collecting public feedback through an online Superintendent Profile Survey, which will help the Board develop a competency and qualification profile. The survey, which takes about 15 minutes to fill out, will be available until July 31. The survey is located at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/T6TJ5C8.

It’s the duty of Hawaii’s superintendent of education to develop internal policies and procedures for the procurement of goods, services, and construction, consistent with the goals of public accountability and public procurement practices. The superintendent ensures that all repair and maintenance projects achieve maximum cost-efficiency, develops project specifications based on generic specifications or prescriptive specifications using standard commercial products, and submits an annual report to the Legislature, which shall include a financial statement of the account and the status of repair and maintenance projects undertaken.

The Board expects to conduct interviews with potential candidates in September and hire a superintendent by mid-October.

The Board’s search for a superintendent follows the December 31, 2009 retirement of former Superintendent Patricia Hamamoto. On January 11, 2010, the Board appointed Kathryn Matayoshi, a former deputy superintendent, to serve as interim superintendent while a search is conducted.

Hawaii’s superintendent has responsibility over the nation’s tenth largest public school system and the nation’s only statewide district. Funded by a $1.7 billion budget, the Hawaii State Department of Education has some 22,000 full-time employees, including 13,000 teachers serving approximately 171,000 students. It comprises 257 schools located in 15 complex areas on seven islands.