CHAMPAIGN — Champaign school board members were split Monday night on what search firm to hire after hearing from representative of two firms that could help them find a new superintendent.

Representatives of School Exec Connect and Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, both from the Chicago area, made presentations to the board at a special meeting. The board is looking to do a national search for a new superintendent to replace Arthur Culver, who has resigned effective June 30.

Several board members said they felt more comfortable with the personalities of the two representatives from School Exec Connect and felt they might be a better fit for the board. But they also agreed the Hazard, Young firm had a much broader national network of potential candidates.

Board member Dave Tomlinson said he felt "it's not about either search firm. It's about the process we're going to go through."

He said the board needed to have a firm that will do its job in narrowing the candidates down to a small group of qualified people to bring to the board.

Each firm said a key part of its search is developing a profile of what staff, parents and the community want to see in a superintendent before searching for a candidate that would have those characteristics. Each also said it could incorporate the community input survey the district already has on its website into the community outreach it will do.

Among the questions asked of the firms was their views on confidentiality of the names of the potential candidates. The School Exec Connect officials said candidate names are usually kept confidential until they are narrowed to a group invited for a second round of interviews with a community committee.

The representatives from Hazard, Young suggested a confidentiality agreement could be in place for a community committee while it was conducting candidate interviews. Public interviews of the candidates "might make community members feel good, but ... what will they learn that you haven't learned (in interviews)?" asked Hank Gmitro, one of the Hazard, Young representatives.

Tomlinson said he liked the idea of the confidentiality agreement, but he and others said the process has to be transparent and the finalist names must become public at some point.

The board is scheduled to make a decision on which firm to hire at its June 13 meeting.