Here's what the Albuquerque Public Schools community wants out of its next superintendent

The Albuquerque Public Schools community has spoken.

On Wednesday, the district released a report of thousands of voices from around the metro area on what the person to succeed outgoing Superintendent Scott Elder should look like — characteristics that mirrored what the district said it wanted the last time the board went searching for a new chief.

Elder is set to leave his post June 30, when his contract expires. He’s been the permanent superintendent of APS since 2021 but led the district on an interim basis since 2020.

The 41-page document dives into feedback the district gathered from its most recent public online surveys and community forums, but also from discussions with specific groups within the district.

In all, the voices of 7,700 district stakeholders are included in the report, according to McPherson & Jacobson LLC, the national superintendent search firm APS contracted to help find Elder’s successor and which helped develop the report.

The report, said board President Yolanda Montoya-Cordova, whose last meeting on the panel was Wednesday, will help provide board members a reference point for many of the different perspectives across the district.

“It’s just a great tool for the board members,” she said.

That said, McPherson & Jacobson consultant Walter Cooper noted the report is just one data point for board members, and is meant as a litmus test for them to compare themselves against as they make their decisions.

Last week, APS released a list of two dozen people who tossed their hats in the ring to become the district’s next superintendent. At least three of those people were APS employees already, two of them already in Elder’s cabinet: Chief of Schools Channell Segura and Chief Operations Officer Gabriella Blakey.

Board members and officials have said the panel aims to present finalists to the community and then make their pick by the end of January, but that that timeline is subject to change.

Almost 40% of respondents to the online survey said the new superintendent must put the needs of students first. Nearly 38% said that person needs to have a background in education, and about a third said they need to promote safety and security in the district’s schools.

About 26% said the new superintendent should encourage transparency across the district’s leaders, and 22% said that person should be able to take responsibility for their decisions and actions.

Those top five responses were the exact same as the ones in a survey from four years ago, before Elder took over as interim superintendent.

Few in the online survey prioritized previous experience as a superintendent — about 7% checked that box — and fewer still felt the new superintendent needed to have a graduate degree.

APS’ in-person community discussions yielded some similar, but also some new or different, responses, though these weren’t quantified by the amount of people who checked off specific boxes.

Instead, those responses were listed as common themes that APS parents, educators and other community members voiced in terms of what they wanted out of Elder’s successor.

Some of those qualities included being committed to equity in education, opposing the status quo, transparency and approachability, and having experience with the job, especially with respect to managing large districts.

There were other qualities the community said it didn’t want.

Those included being authoritarian, unwilling to collaborate, disrespectful of the district’s workforce and having no experience in teaching or in public education. The community said it would also reject anyone not willing to be part of Albuquerque’s local community, or who did not incorporate its variety of cultures in their decision-making, or who was racist.

Some 34% of the people who responded to the online survey identified as white. About 30% declined to identify themselves with any race or ethnicity and 21% identified as Hispanic. Only 2% identified as Native American, and a little over 1% identified as Black.

About 3% of the district’s students are identified as Black or African American, and more than 5% are Native American, according to district data. Board member Josefina Domínguez asked for more voices from tribal leaders to be included in the report, saying it’s of “utmost importance” that they be more represented in the report.