Super search

School scooper, Rob Siltanen, posted yesterday that the rumor mill was buzzing about School Superintendent Ardella Dailey stepping down as of January 2009.   But in addition to breaking that tidbit of news he has some insightful questions for us all to ponder in light of the timing and the situation the school district is currently in.   The Chief Financial Officer position is being vacated and the majority of the school board is up for election in November.

Of course, as reported by A Little Birdie, it has surpassed just being grist for said rumor mill and moved into a stark reality for our school district.

So what does this all mean?

Well, clearly a search committee needs to be established to find our next School Superintendent.   I think we would all prefer that we didn’t go the “interim” route and prolong the process so it appears that the current sitting board will probably be the ones to start and possibly complete the search for a new Superintendent, as mentioned by Rob S.   However, if the process has not been completed by November, perhaps it would be good, once the election results have been tallied, to include the newly elected School Board members in the process of selected a Superintendent.   After all, these are the folks that will be working with the Superintendent and therefore should have the ability to be a part of the process of finding someone they find suitable.

The press release mentioned that the Board is currently working on a search process that will include community input, so it’s as good as a time as any to start piping up and telling the School Board what type of person should be driving the big AUSD ship through these next few years or so.   From the last Superintendent search, Mike McMahon created a very interesting surveythat 90 individuals participated in, giving feedback as to what type of skills an AUSD Superintendent should have.   I think a lot of those suggestions still resonate today, a few that caught my eye:

• I would like to have someone who works well with others, communicates well and wants to stay in Alameda a long time. I hate seeing waste in our school system. We need someone who is fiscally savvy and has a long-term vision for facilities and labor relations.
• The Superintendent is the highest ranking, most visible member of our school community. With that in mind I believe the new Superintendent should have a management level understanding of all of the specific areas listed above, but must have a knowledge of the community, schools, current personnel, and major problems facing this district. It doesn’t make sense to me to look outside AUSD because it would take an outsider many months just to get up to functioning speed and we don’t have the luxury of having that much time. We have decisions that should be made now.
• Obviously, strong managements skills. I think of the superintendent as being the CEO of the “Corporation”. They need not have each individual skill within the district, but have a good overall understanding of all the areas he/she manages. He/she must build a strong base of lower management to upper management and allow those with expertise in their field to do their job, until proven otherwise.

While I am torn on the idea that the future Superintendent should be someone from within the current AUSD community, I can see a benefit in both having an outsider come in to shake things up a bit, but can appreciate the institutional knowledge that is key with having someone that already understands the nuances of the organization.    But if you can have someone within the organization that would be willing to make some dramatic changes, that would be the best scenario.

What I do think is really important for AUSD moving forward and when a candidate is considered is that the person be committed to transparency and getting information about AUSD to the general public.   In the past, I would say that the school district has done a pretty mediocre job of making information easily accessible and while, thank goodness, that Mike McMahon has stepped in to provide Alameda as much information as possible, the onus should be on the school district, not a volunteer School Board member to make public relations an important part of daily operations.

Ideally, I think we would want a strong candidate from within the AUSD community that would be willing to make strategic changes.   If anyone from outside the AUSD community is considered, I believe they would need to have impeccable credentials and come from a successful school district, because honestly, do we want someone from a school district that is doing worse than we are to shepherd us through these next few years?

A few names have been bandied about already, I know David Kirwin has suggested that outgoing CFO, Luz Cazares, be in the running for the position.   One thing I have to say about her is that every time she presents something to the board, she makes it very easy to understand, which is not easy to do when it comes to school finances. 

Another name that several folks have said should be considered is Sean McPhetridgewho was formerly the Director of Secondary Education, but I think someone might have mentioned that he has recently also left the school district to work on his doctoral dissertation.   A quick google search turns up that he attended the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Urban Superintendents Program.

The last name I have heard, so far, I imagine there will be more to come, is Laurie McLachlan Fry, who is currently head of Human Resources, but was previously the principal of Chipman Middle School.

The School Board, AUSD community, and Alameda in general should be in for an interesting few months, but this just further emphasizes the point that when we think about who we want to sit on the School Board that we get quality folks up on that dais because when they are tasked with some big issues, we want them to be able to handle it, even when it comes rushing at them all at the same time.