By Matthew E. Milliken

mmilliken@heraldsun.com; 419-6684

DURHAM -- Before Durham school board members hire a successor to outgoing Superintendent Carl Harris, they could face another momentous decision: how to seek his replacement.

Namely, the board will probably decide who to hire to help them make their next hire.

Greg West knows how important that decision is. When Gov. Beverly Perdue selected Cumberland County Superintendent Bill Harrison to lead K-12 education in January, the Cumberland school board was tasked with replacing Harrison.

The board, which West heads, took pitches from private search firms as well as the North Carolina School Boards Association. The board found the association "had the most economical and what looked like the most comprehensive search process" and hired the NCSBA, West said.

Whereas other firms would have charged $15,000 to $20,000, the association charges $8,500 plus expenses. The entire search process cost around $10,000, West said.

On June 9, West and his colleagues hired a new superintendent, Frank Till. He couldn't be more pleased with Till or with the work the association did during the search.

NCSBA contributions included advising the board to allow two months for application submissions and compiling results from anonymous Web-based surveys for district employees and the general public on the qualities they wanted in their next education chief. The association also handled sensitive paperwork, conducted initial phone screenings and made travel arrangements for face-to-face interviews.

"I have a full-time job running a construction company," West said. "There's no way I could have done the level of work they did. So it's almost imperative I think to have a quality search to outsource it."

Allison Schafer, the lead attorney and policy director for the School Boards Association, said she has conducted about 70 North Carolina superintendent searches in the last decade -- far more than any other consultant. She said six months is an "optimal" time frame for a search.

On Monday, hours after Harris announced that he was leaving Durham for a deputy assistant secretary job with the federal Department of Education, Durham school board Chairwoman Minnie Forte-Brown said that she wanted to move deliberately in finding a successor.

"We want the public to know that we have the proper tools in place to do exactly what we need to do to move the district forward and to hire a superintendent that brings the same talent that Carl Harris possesses," Forte-Brown said.

At a committee meeting Monday night, Forte-Brown asked her colleagues to e-mail her with possible dates to meet with Schafer. Forte-Brown also asked fellow board members to indicate whether they also wanted to meet with Duval County, Fla., school board member Nancy Broner, a trainer for the Center for Reform of School Systems.

The board will definitely meet with Schafer but may not seek assistance from CRSS.

CRSS president and founder Don McAdams said his organization offers two days of training at a cost of $4,500 per day plus travel expenses. One day involves evaluating the district's needs and its approach to hiring both a consultant and a superintendent. The other day is meant to help the board bond and learn to collaborate with its new hire. A board can have one or both days of training.

CRSS does not conduct searches, McAdams said, but it can help a board conduct a good one and build clear goals into the contract that it negotiates with the new superintendent.

"There's a lot of value we add to the board prior to the beginning of a search," McAdams said.

McAdams said a search typically could be completed in four months, not the five or six that Schafer said was her norm. He said hiring a search firm could cost $30,000 to $60,000.