Maureen Ott Statement regarding Board Appointment

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I will get straight to the point. I believe that the process that Ringgold has used to find a replacement for the open Board seat has serious flaws.

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Letters of interest were solicited and 13 individuals applied. It is wonderful to see so much interest in the community.  Following receipt of the letters, Board members were not given any opportunity to provide input regarding how the field should be narrowed or how the voting would be conducted. We were told that each candidate would be allotted 15 minutes for an interview. The interviews consisted of 6 questions to each candidate. Three of the questions required only yes or no answers, and were already largely addressed in the letters of interest. No follow up questions were permitted from the Board, and the average interview lasted 5 minutes. Not all Board Directors were present for the interviews. We are being asked to base our decision tonight on the letters of interest and those interviews.

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Contrast this with the process used in a neighboring district when they recently had a Board vacancy. They received letters from 16 qualified candidates, held multiple rounds of interviews, and multiple votes in public to methodically narrow the field from 16 down to 9 then to 4 then to the final 2, before taking their final vote. They did this over the course of 3 meetings because they were making a sincere effort to identify the individual best suited to fill the vacancy. It is regrettable that our Board is unwilling to put forth a similar effort. We talk about wanting the best effort from our students, faculty, and administration, we should expect the same from our Board as well.

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My understanding is that one person will be nominated tonight and we will be asked to vote yes or no on that individual. To say that this is a biased process is an understatement. Board members may find more than one candidate acceptable, but with this process the first nominee will win. That doesn’t mean they are the best candidate. Either the field should be narrowed by having yes/no votes on every candidate, or multiple candidates should be nominated and Board members should be given the opportunity to vote for their choice, until one candidate receives the majority of votes.

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Furthermore, if the Board member who was not present for interviews votes tonight for any candidate, it also indicates that he doesn’t respect the interview process, otherwise I don’t understand how he can vote without having been present.

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To all of the candidates who applied thinking that an impartial process would be used to fill the vacancy, I apologize to you for thinking you had a fair chance.