GUILDERLAND — The search for a new superintendent of the Guilderland schools is underway.

After 14 years at the helm of the large suburban district, Marie Wiles announced in October that she would retire at the end of the school year.

Lauren Gemmill, district superintendent for the Capital Region BOCES, will lead the search assisted by the deputy district superintendent, Elizabeth Wood.

The only cost the district will bear for the search is to pay for advertising.

“When I do a search, that is just part of the value added that we have for our component districts,” Gemmill told the school board members at their Dec. 10 meeting.

Gemmill outlined two different selection processes the board could follow: confidential and traditional.

The salient difference is that the traditional process involves stakeholders in the final interview of candidates.

“If a district is really looking for a candidate that is a sitting superintendent, they have opted for the confidential [process] for the confidentiality of that person to be able to go through the process,” Gemmill said.

With the stakeholder process, although the community and staff members conducting interviews are asked to sign confidentiality agreements, Gemmill said, “That name is going to be shared by the next morning — it’s just a reality.”

In her six years at the Capital Region BOCES, Gemmill said, only one traditional search has been conducted. During that process, two sitting superintendents being considered for the vacant post declined to move forward with the stakeholder interviews and the board ended up “going back out and tapping some folks for another pool.”

All eight members of the Guilderland School Board present at the Dec. 10 meeting favored using the confidential process.

That confidential process is a bit faster than the traditional process and is expected to take four to five months.

The process, which Gemmil said would start on Dec. 11, the day after the board met, will begin with surveys and include 18 community forums — about double the usual number.

Gemmill said that Wiles and board leaders had stressed “the importance that all voices are heard from the very beginning of the process.”

Both the survey and the forums, she said, will ask the same five questions:

— What are the strengths of the Guilderland Central School District?

— What needs to be improved?

— What characteristics and personal attributes should the new superintendent have?

— What will this new superintendent need to work on first?

— Do you have any additional thoughts or comments?

The anonymous survey, posted on the district’s website, is open until Jan. 11.

Gemmill encouraged people to fill out the survey more than once because opinions may change as ideas are shared.

A list of the 18 forums is posted on the district’s webpage, specifying various school groups for each, ranging from elementary school staff to maintenance mechanics as well as one for town elected officials and two for the public at large.

“All members of the community are welcome to participate in a group that fits their demographic,” says the district’s webpage.

“The board of education sees every single response,” said Gemmill of survey results as well as forum commentary.

Ads will be placed with the New York State Council of School Superintendents and with the New York State School Boards Association, which the district will pay for, Gemmill said.

“Those are the two places people go when they are looking,” she said.

Gemmill will conduct screening interviews with every candidate who applies.

“They’re not pools,” Gemmill said of the candidates who apply. “They’re puddles.”

She went on, “We don’t have 30, 40, 50 people applying for superintendencies. The last four searches that we’ve done in the Capital Region have been anywhere from nine to 15 candidates.”

The board will conduct three rounds of interviews, with the last round typically whittled to two or three candidates, Gemmill said.

The goal is to announce the new superintendent by July 1.

“Sitting superintendents typically have a 60-day or 90-day agreement,” said Gemmill, meaning the selected candidate would not be able to leave his or her former job for two or three months.

“We are ready to roll on this tomorrow,” Gemmill told the board as she left the Dec. 10 meeting.