The possibilities are endless.

The priorities? Well, that list is a little shorter.

Consultants for the South Whidbey School District who are leading the search for a new superintendent will huddle with students, teachers, then the school board before an evening meeting tonight with the community.

The idea is to find out what kind of person is needed to replace outgoing Superintendent Fred McCarthy, as well as the top issues the next chief of schools will face after McCarthy retires in June.

District officials hope to use the input from this week’s meetings to guide the search process, with the new hire coming on board by May.

The new superintendent will be coming into a district shouldering its first setback in memory at the polls; the rejection of the

$25 million measure that would have helped consolidate schools on its Maxwelton Road property. November’s election brought galvanized opposition from parents and others angry over the proposed closure of Langley Middle School, an iconic building in the Village by the Sea, and led to recent suggestions that some sort of superhero was needed to save the district from its ongoing tribulations.

Faster than a speeding budget reduction? Able to pass tall building proposals in a single bond? District officials are hoping the community will help define the characteristics needed by the new superintendent, as well as the strengths of the school district and community.

“We really need a good people person who can work with the wide variety of opinions that we have here,” said Board Member Steve Scoles.

McPherson & Jacobson, an executive recruitment firm based in Omaha, Neb., will lead today’s sessions. The board will meet with the consultants at 12:30 p.m., and a special meeting with the community is planned for 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the board room on the primary school campus.

The school board recently reached consensus on what to do in light of November’s failed bond attempt — the district won’t try to rerun a measure this year — and district officials are also in general agreement on the top three issues facing the school district.

McCarthy said the top issue was clear: student achievement.

“The most important thing we do is teach children,” he said.

“We’ve been working, for the time that I’ve been here and before, to put into place the foundational elements for a quality instructional program,” McCarthy explained.

McCarthy noted that on his arrival in 2006, the district had gone eight years without a wholesale adoption of new textbooks.

Adopting new materials for a major subject area, such as math, science or social studies, can cost anywhere between $60,000 and $150,000. District officials, however, have made it a priority in recent years to adopt new textbooks and materials across a broad swath of subject areas.

“It’s really important if a school district is going to have a strong instructional core that it have current instructional materials,” McCarthy said.

The second part is helping teachers become better teachers. Staff development, in cooperation with the island’s other school districts, has focused on what students are actually learning, as opposed to what is being taught.

The third critical component has been the district’s assessment efforts, McCarthy said, to gauge what students are learning.

Others agreed that student success is at the forefront of everything the district does.

“Student achievement is still number one, and that’s what we have to align everything to,” said School Board Chairman Rich Parker.

Not surprisingly, another priority for the next superintendent is the budget.

“I think dealing with continued financial challenges is going to be major,” McCarthy said.

“In the five years I’ve been here, we will have downsized by 500 students. We have lowered our budget by $4 million [across four years], and we will have reduced 60-plus positions from this district,” he said.

The finances for the South Whidbey School District will take another hit in the next budget cycle, and those problems will be exacerbated, McCarthy said, by the state budget crisis and the lackluster economy.

School district officials expect to face additional cuts of $750,000 to $1 million next year.

Even so, Parker said the district was better off than others, given the healthy fund balance that school officials have maintained in recent years. That kept the district from being caught completely “flat-footed” when the recession hit.

“The South Whidbey School District is in a very strong position because of the work we have done through the years. We have a very strong fund balance,” he said, noting that the carry-over balance was nearly $1 million.

“We have flexibility that many districts do not,” Parker said, crediting, in part, the district’s use of conservative enrollment numbers in its budgeting process.

The third priority for the next superintendent is a familiar one: the ongoing consolidation and restructuring effort.

District officials are studying if the sixth through eighth grades can still be moved to the high school, but without the changes that were included in November’s $25 million bond measure, by the consolidation target date of fall 2012.

Schedules are currently being scrutinized to see if all of the students will fit at the high school, and a report is due to the school board by March.

Scoles, the sole school board member who voted against closing LMS, agreed that the restructuring effort will remain a priority despite who takes the helm as superintendent.

“I know for some of the board members, a top priority is consolidation. It’s a priority for me, too, but I would say there’s a different way to go about it then insisting we close the middle school as soon as possible,” Scoles said.

“I think there’s other ways we can consolidate and save money and get better as we get smaller,” he said. “The idea that the only way we can consolidate is by closing the middle school, I think that’s one of the reasons why the bond failed.

“What I heard from the community is we shouldn’t close the door on that [discussion],” Scoles said.

The district’s consultants for the superintendent search will take the input from this week’s meetings and use it to help guide its recruitment efforts.

Applications for the post will be reviewed by the consultants, who will conduct reference checks and screen candidates before presenting finalists to the board.

Semi-finalists will later be chosen and will be brought to Whidbey for interviews.