What the search for a new Sycamore superintendent will look like

Now that Sycamore Community School District 427 has hired a national firm to search for the district’s next superintendent, here’s what the community should expect to happen.

Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates (HYA), which the Sycamore school board agreed to hire on Aug. 13, provided a tentative search timeline in its proposal to the district. That timeline indicates that HYA will complete and work on numerous tasks over the next six weeks, according to district documents.

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During the discussion on what firm to hire for the search, Sycamore board president Michael DeVito said superintendent contracts usually start and end around the end of June and beginning of July, but the hiring process typically begins more than half a year before then.

“Most superintendents are hired in the window of time between November and December, and then usually finish out their contract,” DeVito said. “That’s the timeline that [HYA] outlined here.”

Documents show that by the end of August, HYA will begin vetting candidates and conduct interviews with school board members to learn what characteristics they’re looking for in the next superintendent. For Sycamore, August and September will be part of what HYA termed a four-week engagement phase that is designed to identify the goals, needs and priorities of the school district.

DeVito said a community survey to help the firm understand the views of the overall school district also will be used to guide the search.

The following six weeks will be used for recruiting and candidate vetting, according to the firm’s proposal documents. In October, the school board will be given a slate of qualified candidates and hold first and second round interviews, according to the documents.

Final interviews and the selection of a final candidate is expected in November, with a final vote from the board coming before the end of 2025.

“I like the timeline, I like the way it’s situated,” DeVito said.