School Search Committees and Search Consultants

Revised and approved by the NAIS board in 2003.

The following principles of good practice are designed to help search committees as they embark upon the task of selecting a school head. Each school must decide for itself whether or not it will retain a consultant to help with the search. If the school does decide to engage professional counsel, the same principles should be observed.

1. The board and search committee should devise a search process that is viewed as fair, orderly, and cost-effective by all parts of the school community.
2. The search committee should actively solicit the names of the best available candidates drawn from a broad candidate group without regard to age, race, religion, gender, or national origin unless the school has a religious mission that requires the head to have a particular religious affiliation.
3. The search committee should see pertinent materials related to any and all candidates, including applications that come from outside the consultant's regular network.
4. The search committee should recognize the sensitivity of visits by trustees to a candidate's present school. The consultant should work with the search committee and candidate to see that such visits are complete and thorough yet at no time jeopardize the relation of the candidate to his or her present school. School visits should be made only when the candidate and search committee are at a mutually serious stage.
5. The search committee should make every effort to present the school with a diverse group of candidates. All principles associated with providing equal opportunity should be observed in the process.

Regarding Consultants

1. The search consultant should make every effort to present the school with a diverse group of candidates. All principles associated with providing equal opportunity should be observed in the process.
2. In outlining procedures to the search committee, the consultant should provide a full written description of services offered, including expenses and fees. In the case of a consulting firm, the search committee should be told which person in the firm will do the search and should interview that person prior to any contracting for services.
3. The consultant should make known the names of other schools for which he or she actively is performing a search for persons to fill a similar position.
4. The consultant should limit searches during any given period to a number that will assure service of high quality to each client school.
5. The search consultant should make a reasonable effort to understand the school, its mission, its culture, and the nature of the position to be filled.
6. The school, not the individual candidate, should always be the client.
7. Both consultant and search committee should check candidates' references with great care. The consultant is responsible for presenting a candidate for consideration by the search committee and for emphasizing the committee's responsibility after that time.
8. The consultant should respect the confidentiality of each candidacy and impress upon both search committee and candidates the importance of discretion. Any candidate now a head who is seriously exploring other school headships should so inform his or her current board chair in confidence.
9. The consultant should keep the search committee fully informed about the progress of the assignment throughout the search and ensure that each candidate is informed fully and promptly about the status of his or her candidacy.
10. The consultant should refrain from inviting the head of a school placed in that position by the consultant's firm within the past five years to become a candidate for the client school.
11. No consultant or any member of the consultant's firm should be a candidate for a position in which the consultant is conducting a search.

The NAIS Principles of Good Practice for member schools define high standards and ethical behavior in key areas of school operations to guide schools in becoming the best education communities they can be.  Accordingly, membership in NAIS is contingent upon agreement to abide by "the spirit" of the PGPs. Principles are precepts grounded in an ethic and ethos of “doing the right thing.”  Practices are common activities.

NAIS member schools can download individual Principles of Good Practice from this section of the NAIS website for distribution within the school community. Printed booklets (printed once each year) are also available for sale through the bookstore -- but the website is always the most up-to-date collection of the PGPs. It is our hope that the increased visibility of and easy access to the principles will go a long way in helping schools fulfill their missions.