Rows of empty seats lined the Palatine High School auditorium on the night of the community forum on Aug. 20.

The forum was hosted to allow members of the District 211 community to voice their concerns about a future superintendent.

Earlier this year, the D211 Board of Education hired the K-12 consulting and leadership search firm Hazard Young Attea & Associates (HYA) to aid in the search for a new superintendent to lead the district, following current superintendent Dr. Lisa Small’s retirement in 2025.

“People only show up when people are mad,” Kenneth Arndt, a senior associate at HYA and the main speaker at the community forum, said.

Arndt explained that during more turbulent times, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, forums like these would be packed with community members who had serious concerns about the district’s actions and goals.

However, he explained that when people are happy with the district and the superintendent, they often don’t show up to events like this.

Throughout the past few weeks, the search firm has been conducting various interviews with students, parents, and faculty across the district, aiming to collect responses across the community’s diverse student body.

“It was interesting in that the students said almost the same thing as the parents, as the administrators, as the teachers, as the Board of Education,” Arndt said.

First, those who were surveyed “love the opportunities available to them.”

Second, students appreciated the fact that if they wanted to be a part of something, they could be a part of something. From Crochet Club to Model UN, students across the district believed that they had the opportunity to start and join clubs that aligned with their interests easily.

“That is highly unusual for any school district,” Arndt said. “For a school to provide those kinds of opportunities for their students and everybody, including the parent and the teacher, this is wonderful.”

The data gathered from these surveys will be used by the search firm to help them come up with possible superintendent candidates to present to the board.

“We’re going to take the survey results as well as these conversations we’re having with individuals, and we’re going to put together a leadership profile report,” Brian Harris, the lead consultant on the team working with the Board of Education and former superintendent for the Barrington school district (CUSD 220), said.

The leadership profile report, which will be shared with the board within the next two weeks, will include the strengths and challenges for the school district, the priorities for the next superintendent, and the characteristics that people want in the next superintendent.

The firm will later present the top five candidates to the Board of Education in a closed session, and the board will make a final decision.

The application for the D211 superintendent position is available on the district’s website and will close on Sept. 6, 2024.