Glasgow School Board Selects Flaten To Interview For Open Superintendent Position

The Glasgow School Board met in special session on April 30 to discuss the five Superintendent applications that were received to fill the vacancy that will be left by Wade Sundby at the end of June. After serving the Glasgow Schools for four years, Sundby has accepted a position in Cut Bank.

The five candidates included two in-state applicants, one of which is a current district employee, and three out-of-state applicants. The five candidates, their location and current position are as follows:

Brenner Flaten Glasgow, Mont., Vice-principal- Irle Elementary School

Jon Hewitt Kalispell, Mont., N/A – most recently Campus Principal-Music Teacher, OneSchool Global-Kalispell (06/2017 – 2/2024)

Jeffrey Schaum Gainesville, Ga., AHC, Teacher – Riverside Military Academy

Joseph Vaughn Foley, Ala., School Food Service Consultant

Nicola Campagna Harrellsville, N.C., N/A – most recently Principal Arapaho High School, Wyo. (2014-15).

In addition to reviewing the application themselves, online searches were also utilized to gather more information on the candidates. Board member Blaine White stated “I did some Google searches to find out a little bit more about some of the things they put on their resumes. Some of the information definitely arose some red flags from those other applicants. Brenner is definitely the one that I want to interview. The other four, I did not feel, just from reviewing their applications, they would be a good candidate for where we are at.” Page agreed stating “I would like to speak a little bit about that Google searching. There’s a wealth of information out there. I would agree that there were actually some red flags in those other applications.” Board member Ryan Fast also agreed that Flaten’s application was the one that stood out, stating “I had some major concerns with four of the five applicants. I thought Brenner Flaten would be a candidate worth interviewing.”

After providing an opportunity for the rest of the board members to provide their feedback on all five candidates, the consensus was Flaten was the only truly viable candidate out of the application pool. The recommendation was made to move forward with an interview on May 1.

As part of the application process, candidates needed to submit three letters of recommendations. The Glasgow School Board will reach out to Flaten’s references today, April 30, to talk to them individually before Flaten’s interview tomorrow, May 1, at 1 p.m., in the District Board Room. Flaten will be asked questions, not necessarily about the district, but to leadership skills in general. “The Board will be doing the interviewing because the Board is the one doing the hiring. If there are questions from the public, I would suggest that they relay those to the board members, if there is any information they would like,” stated Page.

Page also stressed that since Flaten is an employee of the district, and though questions will be general interview questions asked of any candidate, if the Board were to want to discuss anything regarding performance of his current position as part of their consideration, the meeting will have to be moved to a closed session for those discussions.

During the meeting on April 30, Board member Stan Ozark also cleared misinformation he has heard from the public regarding Flaten’s application and the process the School Board has followed for the open Superintendent position. “There was a lot of misinformation going on in the community about how we shut applications down as soon as Brenner applied. People had plenty of time to apply for the job even after Brenner did apply for it,” expressed Ozark. “Just to be very clear, that application was received from Brenner the evening before the transfer request was received from Mr. Sugg,” clarified Page. During the work session on April 23, Irle School Principal Ed Sugg requested a transfer to a teaching position at the Glasgow Middle School

Though Flaten is the only viable candidate at this time, board member Chrissa Nelson did express there are other options if necessary, stating, “I hope that we’re not rushing it. I know we’re running out of time. I’m thankful that Brenner did apply and I think that it’s very worthwhile to consider. I want it to be a success for him obviously as well as the school. I just think we need to keep our minds open as far as maybe we do need to use a search firm and move forward with that process if we don’t feel everything will be great after the interview process. I think we still need to keep our options open that way.”

Flaten’s interview will be held at 1 p.m., Wednesday, May 1, in the District Board Room, 229 7th Street N., Glasgow. In addition to the interview, consideration of the offering of the position and consideration of contract negotiations is also on the agenda.