GCD School District selects new superintendent

A new superintendent will lead the Grand Coulee Dam School District, beginning July 1.

The school board selected Rodriguez "Rod" Broadnax as the best candidate Saturday, following what board President Rich Black described as a thorough, broad-based effort to involve as many people as possible in the decision.

Broadnax is currently the interim superintendent at the Muskegon Heights Public School Academy System in Michigan, according to information supplied by the GCD district.

Black said Broadnax has accepted the district's offer verbally.

Among Broadnax's experiences in education administration are three years as a vice principal or principal at Indianapolis Public Schools, superintendent at Esmeralda County Schools in Nevada, superintendent at McIntosh Public Schools in South Dakota, "transformation interim superintendent at Noxubee County Schools in Mississippi, and superintendent at Clintondale Community Schools in Michigan, where for 18 months he headed a district serving 2,125 students.

Black said the selection process started with hiring Northwest Leadership Associates to seek out and vet candidates. The school board took their list of seven possibilities and narrowed it down to four.

All of them were in town last Friday and Saturday for interviews with various groups from the school system or community, each of which shared rankings and thoughts with the school board, who then interviewed each candidate individually, Black said.

"And it was tough," he said, picking from "four very solid candidates."

He said there was not a unanimous agreement among all the people who gave input, but Broadnax consistently ranked highly across a list of attributes.

"We wanted to see someone who might have some ideas on progressing or improving the school district as it stands now," Black said, noting that each district Broadnax led had progressed during his time there.

Black was frank about the vetting process, which involved both the hired headhunter team and district board members doing their own work to sort out controversy in Broadnax's professional history.

News stories from Michigan outline a controversy over credit card charges for a professional development trip where some alcohol was charged to a room his school district paid for.

"Everything that we can find, - and we did ... as much research as we could do - there was no real evidence," Black said after noting the accusations had come after Broadnax had called for an investigation into an online teaching company some local educators were involved with.

Black said Broadnax's school district had asked him to stay on, but he decided to look for a new position and applied at the Grand Coulee Dam district.

He will be moving here with his wife and children.