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MSD of Pike Township

MSD of Pike Township’s School Board responses to questions from the Board’s July 8, 2026 Town Hall Meeting

MSD of Pike Township’s School Board responses to questions from the Board’s July 8, 2026 Town Hall Meeting:

1. Isn’t it the role of the Board to approve or disapprove, up or down, the hiring recommendations of the superintendent?  Was the law and District policy followed in the Board hiring a co-Athletic Director? 

The role of the Board is to govern the School District, and that is exactly what happened here.  By Indiana law, only the Board has the authority to hire and fire personnel.  The administration has no independent authority to hire or fire personnel.  It is the current policy and past practice of the Board to act on the administration’s hiring recommendations.  Ideally the Board and administration will be in alignment before a candidate is ever brought to a public vote.  However, in this instance, the administration provided inaccurate information about a candidate to the Board, disqualifying the candidate from further hiring consideration based on misinformation.  Once the Board determined the administration’s information was inaccurate, the Board held a supplemental briefing to allow the candidate to correct the misinformation provided to the Board to guarantee fairness and transparency in the hiring process.  The administration then chose to bring its own recommendation for a candidate, with no alternative for the Board to consider.  The Board therefore acted under its legal statutory authority to recommend and hire a candidate.
 
2. At what level does the Board intend to get directly involved in hiring decisions? 

The Board has previously and consistently requested that the administration involve it in the interview and decision process for directors and above (Cabinet level positions), similar to the Board’s involvement in the hiring of the Pike High School Principal.  The Board currently is preparing proposed policies and guidelines to this effect.
 
3. Can the community and staff expect that the Board will overrule further hiring recommendations of the administration, including for teachers?
 
The Board does not intend to have direct involvement in hiring of personnel other than directors and Cabinet level positions, similar to its involvement in hiring the Pike High School Principal, which was a collaborative committee process among the administration and the Board.  The Board generally works with the administration to align on hiring recommendations based on each individual candidate’s qualifications and District staffing needs.
 
4. How was the process reached to consider a co-Athletic Director versus an assistant Athletic Director? 

With the hiring of the last co-Athletic Director, the Board approved the Athletic Department to have two co-Directors, versus one Director and an assistant.  At no point did the Board vote on or approve changing the structure from two co-Directors to a single Director and assistant.  The administration, acting on its own, initially posted the opening as seeking an assistant Director and began interviewing candidates without the input the Board had requested. 
 
Once the Board learned of the status of the search, it requested that the administration re-post the position for a co-Director, the only position that had been approved by the Board.  The Board then was involved on a limited basis in reviewing the candidates’ qualifications and interviewing for the co-Director position. 
 
The administration retained the primary role during the screening and interview process in identifying, vetting, and interviewing candidates.  Only when the Board discovered that crucial information had been omitted during the vetting process did it take a more active role in evaluating the candidates, in order to provide a fair hiring process that accurately reflected the qualifications and background of every single candidate.
 
Following the interviews for the co-Athletic Director position, the administration initially still only proposed a candidate for an assistant athletic director position.  Although the administration ultimately recommended a candidate as a co-Athletic Director, it did not quantify how all the remaining candidates qualified based on the different skills required for a co-Athletic Director versus an assistant.  Along with the misinformation provided to the Board about candidates’ backgrounds, the Board was necessarily concerned about whether it could act on the recommendation with complete accuracy and transparency about the qualifications and skills of every candidate. 
 
5. The Pike community was not involved in the “closed door” discussions about the hiring.  How does the Board justify its decision to not hire the individual recommended by the administration? 

Indiana law provides for discussions about the qualifications of potential hires to be held in an executive session, to preserve the confidentiality of such discussions.  This is similar to the confidentiality of discussions about the job performance of any individual at Pike.  The Board takes its responsibility to maintain the confidentiality of human resources matters very seriously, and cannot comment further publicly.