The Saugus Union School District governing board chose Education Support Services Group as the search firm that will find external candidates to fill the district’s open superintendent position.
The decision was made following a lengthy special board meeting held Wednesday to hear from ESS and two other potential firms.
Current Superintendent Colleen Hawkins announced in November she would be retiring effective July 1, 2026, following eight years with the district.
According to the ESS proposal, the cost of the search will not exceed $27,300, which includes a package of search activities including the engagement phase, activation phase and selection phase. Within that package,ESS also includes facilitating a transition phase with the board and new superintendent.
An ESS mentor will also be available to answer questions, serve as a thought partner and support progress for two years following the superintendent selection, the proposal stated.
Before the governing board made the unanimous decision to select ESS, all members discussed the pros and cons of the three firms following presentations from each.
Trustee Anna Griese said she appreciated that ESS was focused on streamlining communication among the board members and the rest of the community, something the other two firms didn’t speak about.
Although the Saugus superintendent search would be one of their only jobs, Griese believed it was “great because it’s a lot of focus on us and we don’t have to worry about time being taken away. I feel like whatever the timeline is, it can be very tight and direct and on schedule.”
Trustee Patti Garibay agreed with Griese’s statements and added that ESS had the highest retention rate among all the firms.
“They seem very eager, very excited,” Garibay said. She also mentioned that she liked that ESS would come back and restart the process, at no additional cost aside from nominal fees, if the initial search failed.
Trustee Christopher Trunkey said all firms were qualified at the base level, but in relation to ESS, they were the least experienced in terms of length of time and number of overall searches. The firm has facilitated a number of superintendent searches across California since 2017, according to their proposal.
Trunkey noted that if selected, Saugus would be their only search, which could be a positive and negative.
“I think it’s an indication that they would have a significant amount of focus on this particular search, which on its face I think is a good thing. I think the flip side of that is that it means that they’re not as in demand as the other search firms and that I think is a concern,” Trunkey said.
Their affiliation with a significant education law firm was something that stood out to Trunkey and a few other members of the governing board. ESS has a partnership with Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo, a professional law corporation.
“I’ve never heard of a search firm being affiliated with a law firm and I’m not exactly sure, you know, why they need that connection,” Trunkey said. “It just seems a little strange to me.”
“The description of the transition period, in my opinion, was the best, the most robust,” Trustee Katherine Cooper said during her remarks. Although ESS didn’t specifically mention the district’s unique challenges during their presentation and how they would focus that within their search, “I think that’s OK because it’s on us to give the list of criteria,” she added.
Board President Matthew Watson was the last to give his insight and echoed a lot of what the previous board members had already mentioned.
“They seem to really do a deep dive into our website, their proposal included specific dates based on our current board calendar. To that point though, I don’t know, I didn’t see that they did as much of a deep dive into who we are as a community,” Watson said. “Obviously they’ll have a chance to do that as we engage, but I would like to see that a little bit more.”
Watson also noted that he was concerned that the board didn’t get a chance to meet the third member of the search team and understands it was due to scheduling issues “but I thought that was really important.”
The search team is made up of Steven Keller, Kelli Moors,and Suzette Lovely. Lovely was not present during the meeting.
But Watson was happy to hear that Lovely was just coming off a TK-6 grade district superintendent search recently, he said.
Following the discussion, Cooper made a motion to select ESS as the search firm and Garibay seconded.
