I had an opportunity to do this last spring and we had a similar format. We submitted a few questions ahead of time, met before the interviews, and weeded out questions that overlapped. We had one parent and one teacher from our school on the panel, as well as other administrators from around the county.

One of my questions was about hiring staff--what were they looking for when they were hiring, what made them choose one candidate over another. I wanted to know what they valued in a teacher, partly because our former administrator did not value our teachers and partly because this is one of the areas that most directly impacts our kids.

My favorite candidate, and the candidate they eventually hired, was the candidate who provided specifics, such as content knowledge, classroom management skills, etc., and not just generalizations about loving children or having a passion for teaching. I felt she would make good choices for our school.

WE had a principal a while ago who just 'loved' gifted kids. Unfortunatley, she kind of d everyone else. When we had a chance to interview a new principal, we were very interested in finding out whether she appreciated all children's special accomplishments. One way to get at that might be to ask: "tell us about a favorite student of yours?" and 'how would you help a child who was not being challenged? one who was not thriving educationally?" and so on. Something like that. Or 'tell us how you helped a child being mainstreamed into your school for the first time."

I think you should wear whichever hat isn't represented in the group (if you're the only staff, ask a staff question, for example), and give your ideas to the others to see if they are already covering that interest. If that makes sense. I would ask What did the parents at your last school like about you and why? What didn't they like and why?

pals, I'll talk to anyone who will listen.

[ 07-13-2005, 07:19 PM: Message edited by: C. Brooks ]

C brooks... I wasn't sure if you were talking to me or not. I like the survey thing, what we did was there was a building interview team. the superintendent and personnel director will bring us their top four candidates, we interview them from there and report back to them.
we arranged a head of time the list of questions that would be asked, as parent group president i went to involvment questions. the team is made of different stakeholders (classroom teachers, special area teachers, psychologist, aides, other builidng principals, site base members and parents.) the whole picture is looked at, each stakeholder has a different thing that they are looking at..it was nice. The word is next week so that we can get someone in place by school startup

I just saw this thread. Did you complete your interview?

Our high school SBDM is going through that same process. They printed an excellent survey for everyone in our local paper. I thought that was a great idea.