Posted May 28, 2024
May 28, 2024
Dear Florida Pitt Waller ECE-8 Community,
We deeply value our DPS community partnership and are committed to engaging our communities in meaningful and collaborative ways. The purpose of this letter is to provide an update on the principal selection process at Florida Pitt Waller.
Ms. Ciani Williams will complete her service at Florida Pitt Waller at the end of the school year. We are grateful for her leadership, service, and care for the Florida Pitt Waller community. Please join us in expressing our appreciation and gratitude to Ms. Williams.
We are writing to explain how we will proceed with finding the next long-term principal of Florida Pitt Waller for the 2024-2025 school year and beyond. This year, we were able to implement some new components in the principal selection process to make it more engaging, accessible, and increase opportunities for candidates to engage with the school community. These additional processes are grounded in the following guiding principles:
● Additional opportunities for a wide variety of stakeholder feedback and engage in the selection process
● Partnering with our district’s Multilingual department to continue to offer translation and interpretation services for stakeholders from multiple language backgrounds
● Equitable access for school communities despite personal circumstances of time and transportation
We will be following these steps for the principal search process in alignment with the guiding principles. The process will include the following:
● Stakeholder surveys (including students, school staff, families, Collaborative School Committee (CSC), and community members) to build a candidate profile with ideal principal characteristics
● Collaborative Director meeting with the school’s CSC to build the principal candidate profile and select questions for the CSC interviews
● Schools Office and district leaders pre-screens of applicants using the principal profiles and interviewing of the top candidates
● Virtual, live community forum for the top finalists to share their vision for the school and address questions generated by stakeholder groups
● Instructional performance task with the Collaborative Director, Executive Director of Schools, and other Schools Office leaders
● Stakeholder surveys and call-in opportunities to provide feedback on the top finalists
● Superintendent review of stakeholder feedback and final interview with candidates before a final decision by the superintendent is made.
As previously shared, we deeply value the voices of all stakeholders in the school community. To continue to honor this approach, we invite students, staff, families, CSC, and community members to complete the survey below to list characteristics they would like to see in the next long-term principal. Please complete this survey by Friday, May 31, 2024, at 10 a.m. by these methods below:
● Use the Community Input Form (English/Spanish): Google Survey
● Email your completed form below by Friday, May 31, 2024 to Brittany Barela at brittany_barela@dpsk12.net
Below this letter is the tentative timeline of the community involvement steps of the process. We will also engage in rigorous reference and data collection on the final candidates.
We know a leadership transition is difficult for students, staff, families, and the community. Our focus will be to ensure we identify the best leader to lead Florida Pitt Waller starting in the 2024-2025 school year and beyond.
Thank you for your support as we work together during this transitional period.
Sincerely,
Dr. Sandra Lochhead
Director, K-8 Schools
Dr. Christina Sylvester
Operational Services Director
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Please click here to look at the full letter with the timeline.