San Diego, CA–The San Diego Unified School District this week will begin a series of community engagement sessions to gather public input and help shape the search for a new superintendent and the future of the district.
The first forums will be held virtually on Thursday, July 29, and Friday, July 30. A total of 30 in-person and Zoom meetings will take place across the district through September.
“The goal is not simply to choose the next outstanding leader for our schools but to truly engage the entire city — every community — about the future of San Diego Unified,” Board of Education President Richard Barrera said. “We are inviting everyone in this community who cares about public education to participate in our series of public input sessions and to share with us their vision for great public schools and the qualities they would like to see in a superintendent to lead us toward that vision.”
The Board adopted the Superintendent Recruitment and Selection Process on Feb. 2 that reflects its commitment to engage stakeholders from throughout San Diego Unified around the vision for the district and superintendent in an open and transparent process.
A 48-member Superintendent Search Advisory Committee is overseeing the process of filling the top position in California’s second-largest school district. The National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) has been contracted to facilitate community outreach and public forums.
“The rich diversity of the students and families in the San Diego Unified School District is one of our biggest assets, and we want to see that diversity reflected in the public input sessions that will shape the search for the next superintendent,” Board of Education Vice President Sharon Whitehurst-Payne said. “We are going to bring these forums to the community in-person and online in an effort to reach as many people as we can. I urge everyone to please join us.”
NCEE will publicly share the results of the community forums with the board. The public input gathered at the engagement meetings will be used to shape the Superintendent’s recruitment and position description, which will be posted and advertised in the fall.
The board appointed longtime San Diego Unified educator, Dr. Lamont Jackson, as Interim Superintendent through Dec. 31, 2021 after former Superintendent Cindy Marten was named Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education. San Diego Unified will conduct the first five community engagement forums virtually, with the first in-person sessions to follow.
Below is the list of dates, locations, and times. The schedule for the remaining forums will be posted and shared with stakeholders later this month. Interpretation services will be available.
All virtual sessions will use the same, recurring login information to join a Zoom meeting: https://ncee.zoom.us/j/83503961572?pwd=ZXN4WjdFT3lMbVhuSXhmdW5yQUdiQT09 Meeting ID: 835 0396 1572 Passcode: 75731
