Lincoln is paying a shockingly terrible company tens of thousands of dollars to find a new

Lincoln is paying a shockingly terrible company tens of thousands of dollars to find a new superintendent

The consulting firm has selected superintendents who lost accreditation for their districts, mishandled abuse cases, and allowed special education students to be beaten, and is led by a former superintendent who cost his district $6 million.


About a month ago, superintendent Steve Joel announced his unplanned retirement from Lincoln Public Schools. This Tuesday, the Lincoln Board of Education selected Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates (HYA) as the organization “to serve as their Superintendent Search Firm.” HYA beat out one other consulting firm, McPherson & Jacobson, although the competition did not seem to be fierce. In video of the board discussion and vote, Barb Baier states, “I don’t think we would make a mistake in choosing either,” echoed by Bob Rauner with, “We can’t go wrong in any significant way.” Nearly every board member made some variation on this sentiment or stated that they were “on the fence” in choosing. The vote was somehow unanimous though, and HYA will receive around $42,600 to aid the board in recruiting a new superintendent.


HYA will cost the district $42,600 ($37,500 + other expenses).

Before looking into why hiring HYA might be of specific concern, we should consider concerns surrounding superintendent search firms in general. While statistics are challenging to find, most superintendent consulting firms appear to be made up largely of former or current superintendents, and one study found that 44% of superintendent search consultants had been a superintendent of schools during their career. Career experience matters, but these firms perpetuate a disturbing cycle: superintendents are paid massive salaries, often followed by large retirement pensions or severance packages, only to be compensated yet again with taxpayer money when they are hired as recruiters. Dr. Joel did not wait for retirement to join a recruiting company; he has been a consultant for McPherson & Jacobson since 1996. And while “Mac ‘n Jake” did not win in LPS’s quest for a search firm, the given rationale was about superior analytics at HYA, not a conflict of interest in hiring Dr. Joel to find his replacement.


SRN is surprised that Dr. Joel could work 24 hours a day as a superintendent while also working as a consultant for “Mac ‘n Jake.”

HYA’s concerning history was clear within one Google search, which calls to question the Lincoln Board of Education’s vetting process. In the board’s defense, they did ask each firm to name a recruitment that was particularly challenging, and how the firm overcame those challenges. HYA’s representative gave a vague answer, only specifying an instance when “one of our finalists was not honest with us.” He did not reference their challenging search for a Metro Nashville Public Schools superintendent, in which they selected John Covington as a contender. Covington was a highly criticized finalist, as he is remembered for his abrupt resignation from Kansas City Public Schools in 2011, which was a contributing factor to the district becoming first in the nation to lose accreditation. (Covington followed this by immediately signing a $1.5 million contract in Detroit, where he abused his financial incentives).

HYA also neglected to remember their recruitment challenges in Minneapolis in 2015. There, HYA recommended Sergio Paez without disclosing allegations of abuse in the district he’d previously led, which included staff beating children with special needs. Perhaps Hazard, Young, Attea, & Associates do not recall these challenging recruitments because their own president was a superintendent mired in controversy. HYA President, Glenn “Max” McGee resigned from the Palo Alto Unified School District in 2017 after mishandling a student sexual assault case and missing a deadline that cost his district $6 million.

Read more: https://seeingrednebraska.com/education/lincoln-is-paying-a-shockingly-terrible-company-tens-of-thousands-of-dollars-to-find-a-new-superintendent/