Kingsley ready to interview four superintendent candidates

Grace George, The Record-Eagle, Traverse City, Mich.
·4 min read

Dec. 1—TRAVERSE CITY — The Kingsley Area Schools is set to interview four candidates, including the current superintendent at Elk Rapids, for the position of superintendent.

At a Monday meeting, the school board reviewed candidate applications in a closed session before voting after their closed session on which candidates to bring in for an interview at the beginning of December.

Kingsley school board started the superintendent search earlier in the school year after Keith Smith, their superintendent of 12 years, resigned in September in exchange for a full buyout of his five-year contract, which totaled about $700,000.

The deadline for the applications was Nov. 16, and the first-round interviews are scheduled for 4 p.m. Dec. 5.

The board narrowed a field of nine applicants down to four for the first-round interviews: Julie Brown, superintendent of Elk Rapids; Jack Ledford, superintendent of Waldron Area Schools; Brad Reyburn, high school principal at Newaygo Public Schools; and Susanne Carpenter, superintendent of Stephenson Area Public Schools.

Brown has been superintendent at Elk Rapids, which has a student population of about 1,200, since September 2020. Prior to that, she was the superintendent of Houghton Lake Community Schools in Roscommon County.

Brown earned a bachelor's degree from Adrian College, a master's degree in educational leadership from Eastern Michigan University, and an educational specialist degree from the University of Michigan-Flint, according to previous Record-Eagle reporting.

Ledford has been superintendent at Waldron Area Schools in Hillsdale County for the past year. Waldon had a student population of 244 during the 2021-22 school year, according to MI School data.

Ledford has been in education for more than 40 years. Previously, he was the K-12 principal at Waldron for three years, and he has been a physical education instructor, a second-grade teacher, a middle school social studies teacher and a high school English teacher.

Earlier this year, he interviewed for the open superintendent position at Grand Traverse Academy, but he did not advance past the first-round interviews.

Reyburn is currently the principal at Newaygo High School, which has a student population of about 500. He has been at Newaygo Public Schools since 2002, and he has prior experience as a teacher at both Newaygo and Montabella Community Schools.

Reyburn has a bachelor's degree from Grand Valley State University and a master's degree from Central Michigan University.

Carpenter has been the superintendent at Stephenson Area Public Schools in Menominee County since August 2020. Stephenson had a student population of 459 in the 2021-22 school year.

Carpenter has been in education for about 30 years, 10 of which she spent as principal for Atherton Elementary School in Burton, Mich.

John Scholten from Michigan Leadership Institute is assisting the school board through the superintendent search process. He said Kingsley received and reviewed nine official applicants before narrowing the field down to four for interviews on Monday.

On Dec. 5, before the interviews, Scholten will hand out comment sheets for the public to fill out with their thoughts about the candidate and recommend questions for the board to ask during the second round.

The school board also has candidate in-district visits and second round interviews tentatively scheduled for Dec. 14.

The surveys and focus groups asked these three questions: What are you most proud of? What type of leader would you like to see for Kingsley Area Schools? And what are the biggest challenges that the school district is facing?

The first two questions were used to form the candidate profile, which was sent out as part of the official application posting. The third question was used by MLI when recruiting and talking to potential candidates to discern who would be a good fit for the school district.

For the first question, many said they were proud of Kingsley's caring and involved close-knit community, student-first mentality, dedicated staff, opportunities for students, strong academics, arts and athletics and the fact that the district is fiscally sound.

For the second question, respondents said they would like to see a leader who is open to new ideas, involved in the community, knowledgeable about the politics of public education at the local, state and federal levels, and dedicated to educational excellence.

People also said they would like to see a leader with a high level of personal and professional ethics who is respectful of others, compassionate, communicative, decisive, approachable, calm, patient, reflective, and humble.