PAXTON — The Paxton-Buckley-Loda school district is enlisting the help of the Illinois Association of School Boards to find its next superintendent.
During its regular monthly meeting on Wednesday, July 9, the seven-member school board heard a half-hour presentation from Vic Zimmerman — a retired Monticello school district superintendent now working as a consultant for the IASB’s executive search committee — before voting to enter into a contract for the IASB to perform superintendent search services in return for an $8,400 fee.
The school district has been without a superintendent since Tuesday, July 1 — the day after Superintendent Travis Duley’s resignation went into effect. Until the position is filled — likely no earlier than July 1, 2026 — Assistant Superintendent Tara Chandler is expected to continue leading the district.
Vic Zimmerman, a retired Monticello school district superintendent now working as a consultant for the Illinois Association of School Boards’ executive search committee, makes a presentation to the Paxton-Buckley-Loda school board on Wednesday, July 9. Zimmerman coincidentally is a Paxton native and 1982 graduate of Paxton High School.
Under a proposed timeline provided by Zimmerman, the search would involve a series of steps — including the administration of an online survey, the creation and dissemination of an announcement of the job vacancy, a five- to six-week application period, the screening of candidates, and three rounds of interviews — before culminating with the board’s approval of a new hire for next July at its Nov. 12 meeting.
“Probably the most important thing that you guys will do as a school board is hire your superintendent,” Zimmerman told the board. “We’re there as a resource for you all along the way — all the way up until you hire your superintendent.”
Facilitating the process will be an IASB executive search team that includes three consultants — Zimmerman as lead consultant along with Matt Bruce and Dave Love — plus director Jim Helton and administrative assistant Mary Torgler.
“I would be your point of contact and the lead consultant for the search,” Zimmerman told the board.
Zimmerman, who coincidentally is a Paxton native and 1982 graduate of Paxton High School, was a school district superintendent for 19 years, including 15 at Monticello, before starting his work as an executive search consultant for the IASB and as a regional field services director for the Illinois Association of School Administrators upon his 2022 retirement.
Search process
Led by Zimmerman, the executive search team will first help the board develop a timeline for the search process and then administer an online survey to board members, staff and community members.
“That survey includes 15 characteristics of a superintendent, and we ask the survey-takers to pick their top five ideal characteristics out of those 15,” Zimmerman said. “In addition, there are some open-ended questions that we ask within the survey, including: What does the district do well? What can the district do better? What are your thoughts on the superintendent search?”
Once the survey is closed, the responses are used to help develop a profile of an “ideal candidate,” Zimmerman said. That profile — which Zimmerman described as “a bulleted list of six to eight of the ideal characteristics” selected through the survey — is then included in an announcement of the vacancy that is posted online on the IASB’s website, the IASA’s job bank and the National Affiliation of Superintendent Searchers’ website and emailed to the more than 7,000 people who have signed up to receive the IASB’s job postings, Zimmerman said.
In addition to the ideal candidate profile, the announcement would include information about the school district, the timeline for the search, how to apply, and the anticipated salary range and benefits, along with “some special questions that we would ask the candidates,” said Zimmerman.
“We would (then) begin collecting applications, and the position would be open for five to six weeks, depending on what we end up deciding in regards to at timeline,” Zimmerman said. “Once we receive those applications, we verify the qualifications and licensure of all the applicants to ensure that they can actually be a superintendent in Illinois.
“Once the position closes, then we analyze the applications and decide as the consultant team which candidates best measure up to your ideal candidate profile. Then we do candidate screenings. We do 30-minute Zoom screenings with the candidates that we feel would best be potential candidates for your opening. What we like to bring to the board is up to six candidates for you to interview in the first round (of interviews). So we’re looking to bring six candidates that we feel would fit well with PBL as potentially your next superintendent. We’ll pick the six that we feel best match up for you guys.”
The executive search committee would complete “limited background inquiries” on the six selected candidates and “verify their references,” Zimmerman said, before a special board meeting is held to schedule first-round interviews and discuss with Zimmerman various topics related to the upcoming interview process.
“At that meeting, we’ll discuss how to do the interview, questions that you can ask, how to select your questions, how to narrow down from six (candidates) to your two finalists, and how to narrow down from your two finalists to your No. 1 finalist,” Zimmerman told the board. “We’ll also talk about second-round interviews — what that looks like — and finalist interviews with you.”
After the interview process, the board would make a selection and negotiate a contract with that finalist, then approve the hire at its November meeting, Zimmerman said.
“And then, once you do hire a superintendent and they start on July 1, our services include a three-hour workshop with one of our outreach and training directors,” Zimmerman told the board. “They will come out to the district, meet with the board, meet with the new superintendent … (to talk) through all of the logistics of how the board wants the superintendent to communicate with the board on a weekly basis or monthly basis. It’s just to talk about getting everybody on the same page, so that everybody starts in the right direction when you do have a new superintendent in the big chair.”
In the event the board were to decline to hire any of the candidates it interviews this fall, the position would be advertised again in January and the process repeated at no additional cost, Zimmerman noted.
“We’re with you until you hire a superintendent,” Zimmerman told the board.
Zimmerman also noted that the process would be redone for no extra cost if a superintendent were to be hired but leave the job within the first year “for any reason.”
“If you let them go or they leave on their own, we’ll do your search again … for no additional fee,” Zimmerman pledged.
Optional add-ons
Additional optional services are also available, Zimmerman noted, including in-district focus groups, stakeholder group interviews with finalists, and mock interview training sessions. Each of those services is provided at an additional cost of $1,500 beyond the base fee of $8,400, Zimmerman noted.
“In addition to the staff, parent and community surveys, we do offer what we call in-district focus groups,” Zimmerman explained. “In that situation, I would meet with teachers at (all three of PBL’s schools) — and possibly meet with a parent group — and sit and listen to what they have to say about what they’re looking for in a superintendent (and) what the district does well and can do better. While the survey is more of a quantitative view of what we’re looking for in an ideal candidate, the focus groups are more of a qualitative view, where I would listen to what everybody’s saying, and then I would summarize and provide that back to the board in a report.”
Similarly, the stakeholder group interviews would give the board additional feedback.
“When we narrow down from six (candidates) to two finalists … some boards like to do a stakeholder group (interview),” Zimmerman said, explaining that the board would interview the finalists individually for one hour each while the other finalist is interviewed separately by a board-selected stakeholder group made up of staff and community members, who then provide their feedback to the board before a selection is made. “The purpose of it is for them to meet the candidates, hear the candidates, get questions answered and provide feedback to the facilitator. … It’s just another piece of data that you guys can use in making your final decision on who you want to end up hiring as a superintendent.”
The optional mock interviews, meanwhile — involve an IASB consultant being interviewed by the board as a “mock candidate,” Zimmerman said, giving the board some practice before the real interview process begins.
“I would bring you 10 questions to ask that candidate,” Zimmerman told the board. “It would be set up exactly like a first-round interview. Then I would provide feedback.”
Search history
To attract as many applicants as possible, Zimmerman said their identities would remain confidential to the public until finalists are selected.
“That is important for our applicants,” Zimmerman said, “because, if you are hoping to attract a sitting superintendent and you’re not confidential about the process, that sitting superintendent is putting their current position at risk by applying for a job in another district.”
As might be expected, most applicants for superintendent positions filled with the IASB’s assistance are already living in Illinois, with an average of about 10% being from other states, Zimmerman said.
The IASB recently completed superintendent searches for nine area school districts — Iroquois West, Clifton Central, Cissna Park, Prairie Central, Maroa-Forsyth, Pontiac, Milford, St. Joseph and Streator-Woodland — and is now working to fill six other superintendent vacancies statewide.
“All of the (new) superintendents (in the area) are still in those spots right now,” Zimmerman added.
Annually over the last seven years, an average of 100 of the state’s 852 public school districts have hired a new superintendent, Zimmerman said. Most of those new superintendents — about 75% — are new to the job, too, Zimmerman said.
“So when I talk with boards about considering doing a search or hiring a new superintendent, what I tell them is this: ‘Boards are looking for a superintendent who’s got experience, who’s willing to take less salary than their prior superintendent, and who will live in the school district,’” Zimmerman told the board. “But the chances that you will get all three of those are very, very slim. That’s just how it is. That’s just the market.”
Zimmerman said the salary range for other superintendent positions currently posted in Illinois ranges from $140,000 to $160,000, and PBL should expect that same range for its own hire, too.
“That would be the salary range that I would recommend that you guys would post for your superintendent, as well,” Zimmerman told the board. “That doesn’t mean your’e going to get somebody at $160,000, but you’re going to pay at least $140,000 for a superintendent. That’s just the nature of the business right now.”
Long time coming
This will be the first time that an outside search firm has assisted PBL with the search for a superintendent since John Perkins was hired for the position decades ago. The last two superintendents — Cliff McClure, who retired in 2023 after 20 years at the helm, and Duley, who unexpectedly resigned on June 30 after only two — were already employed at PBL before landing the gig.
In an email to staff in early June, Duley cited the stress of the job as his reason for resigning three years before his contract was set to expire. His four-sentence letter of resignation to the board — dated June 1 and later obtained by the Chronicle via a Freedom of Information Act request — read, in part: “I am beyond grateful to the PBL school district and (its) communities for the opportunities I have been given. However, after much reflection, I have come to the conclusion that it is time for me to pursue other career opportunities. As the district seeks its next superintendent, I will do everything I can to ensure a smooth transition.”
District records show Duley’s base salary for 2024-25 was $129,347.
Duley had been employed by the district for 23 years, previously having served one year under McClure as associate superintendent, eight years as principal of PBL High School and 12 years as a high school business teacher while also coaching the varsity girls’ basketball team. In spring 2024, the board approved a three-year extension of Duley’s contract as superintendent — from July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2028.
Duley’s resignation came amid an investigation into alleged sexual misconduct by suspended teacher and former coach Robert Pacey — and just a few weeks after the school board was urged to look further into the situation and hold administrators accountable for not promptly suspending Pacey and notifying the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. Later, two lawsuits were filed in Ford County Circuit Court naming five defendants: Pacey, Duley, McClure, the school district and PBL Junior High School Principal Josh Didier.
As of this week, Pacey had not been criminally charged or arrested and remained on paid administrative leave amid ongoing internal and law enforcement investigations. Pacey — a STEM and technology teacher at Clara Peterson Elementary School and former head PBL Junior High School cross-country and girls’ track coach — has denied any wrongdoing.
Board to take a 2nd vote
The school board was scheduled to meet again at 4:30 p.m. Monday July 14, in the board room in the administrative office in Paxton. In addition to discussing collective negotiating matters and specific employees in closed session during the special meeting, the board was expected to re-vote on its approval of its contract with the IASB’s executive search committee. That action was added to the special meeting’s agenda after the Ford County Chronicle contacted the school district to point out that it was not listed on Wednesday’s meeting agenda as required by the Illinois Open Meetings Act. Wednesday’s agenda stated that only discussion would take place.