Letter to the Editor
Monday, April 26, 2010
by Jane Shepardson
To the Members of the Board of Education:
As a parent in this community with three school-age children, I am writing to express my concern with the manner in which the Board is conducting its search for and selection of a Superintendent to succeed David Fleishman.
I attended the Thursday, April 22nd forum with Dr. Charles Fowler of School Leadership, LLC, who has been retained by the Board to assist in its search for a new Superintendent. In several emails generated by the Board, community members were encouraged to attend this meeting with Dr. Fowler in order to help the Board “develop a leadership profile of the ideal Superintendent candidate.” What became pointedly clear Thursday night, however, is that the community is not at all being encouraged to question or discuss the process that the Board has seemingly adopted in connection with this search.
Like other community members who have voiced their concerns before me, I am unsettled by the proposition, set forth in the Board’s March 2010 letter to the community, that the Board intends to initially consider an internal candidate who meets the agreed-upon “criteria” before commencing a search for a potential Superintendent from outside the district. It should be noted that this search method is in direct contrast with the Board’s own statement, one month prior in the February 2010 Newsblast, that the Board “anticipate[s] looking for an interim superintendent for the 2010-11 school year, giving us time to conduct a thorough search for a new superintendent who would join us July 1, 2011.”
The community has a right to know what changed in a month. It is my belief that the most important “criteria” for the position of Superintendent is to seek out the best possible individual for the job. In order to do that, we must cast a wide net, set up a search committee to compare both internal and external candidates, and make an informed decision as to which individual is best prepared to lead our district forward in these challenging economic times. If I am correct in reading the Board’s March 2010 letter, it is in fact possible that the Board could unilaterally hire a Superintendent by the end of May without allowing any other individuals – community members or faculty – to even be involved in the interview process.
This would be a clear policy break from the manner in which this district has traditionally chosen its administrators, and there is no more important administrator in the district than the Superintendent.
The community members who attended Thursday’s meeting with Dr. Fowler were unanimous in their belief that the search process must necessarily include the formation of a search committee, made up of community members, teachers and administrators, who would evaluate both internal and external candidates for the Superintendent position. Dr. Fowler, while cordial and professional, responded that he was only there to discuss and report back to the Board on the issue of the “criteria” for choosing a Superintendent, and not on the search process itself. It became evident at this point that the Board really had not provided the community with an outlet for discussing the actual search process, and that is what I find distressing.
I therefore urge the Board to reconsider the path it has chosen for selecting our next Superintendent, and to give the community a true open forum for discussing, and suggesting changes to, the process by which this very important decision gets made.
Sincerely,
Jane Shepardson
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