THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 9, 1995 TAG: 9507040085
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: KALEIDOSCOPE
LENGTH: Long : 270 lines
Editorial Page Editor Beth Barber recently invited interested citizens to share their thoughts about the qualifications for a new school superintendent and how to find him or her. Following are the responses. By E. CARLTON BOWYER
Five top qualifications to look for in a su-per-in-tend-ent:
1. Integrity and a personal commitment to deal honorably with the School Board, staff, teaching corps, classified employees and the community. His/her first priority must be the students and meeting their diverse needs. He/she must possess the moral fortitude to inform the public as to the state of their school division.
2. Professional qualifications which reflect an academic background and skills necessary to bring about a cohesive organization dedicated to the sole purpose of educating students in a culturally diverse school system.
The prospective candidate must be able to demonstrate just what he/she intends to do and how he/she will accomplish the goals of his/her proposed organization. Naturally, associated time lines should be included.
The applicant must have served as a principal or superintendent/assistant superintendent and meet all state and School Board certification re-quire-ments/specifications.
3. Leadership skills which will enable him/her to formulate a cohesive organization committed to educating all students and understanding the mission of the school system as established by the board. He/she must ensure that the board and the entire school system assume a shared responsibility for the success and/or failure of students.
4. Experience in all areas of a large urban school system; i.e., instructional programs, special programs, transportation services, operations, food services, personnel. The individual must have managed a comparably sized school system.
5. A knowledge of school finance. The successful applicant must be cognizant of federal, state and local mandates pertaining to financial accountability. The ability to formulate operating and capital budgets, along with a knowledge of referendum requirements, are essential. Look for a superintendent who requests an external financial audit prior to assuming or leaving a position. The successful applicant must determine the community's ability and willingness to pay for education initiatives. This knowledge will serve to guide the school division's initiatives and budgeting.
Five methods to accomplish the selection of a superintendent:
1. Entire board participation.
The entire School Board should establish a screening process, and that process should be carried out by the entire School Board, whose responsibility it is to appoint a superintendent. No board committee or external faction or individual should usurp the clear responsibility of the entire School Board.
2. Limited outside involvement.
Avoid involving special-interest groups or individuals in the selection process. Some educators would have employees and former employees participate in the process. However, it is not wise to involve employees in the selection of their bosses. In many instances where this occurs, another superintendent search is conducted within a few years.
There are methods of securing community input, but the appointment responsibility is and should be solely that of the School Board.
3. Background
check.
The School Board should contact education institutions attended by the prospective candidate to ensure the accuracy of the application and to seek recommendations. Naturally, a check at the location of current employment is dictated.
4. National search firms.
Move cautiously when hiring national search firms. National search organizations, in many instances, recommend candidates who court their placement services. It is not unusual for search firms to become consultant firms for school systems where some well-connected superintendents have been placed.
5. Prior performance/success.
Look extensively into ``prior superintendencies held.'' There is a myriad of sources available to school boards and each avenue of information should be explored. Successes and failures should be documented. Always check with the undergraduate and graduate institutions attended and secure recommendations from department heads. E. Carlton Bowyer served in Virginia Beach public schools for xx years, including 10 months as su-per-in-tend-ent. By JOE BUCHANAN
When Virginia Beach's educational, political and business establishment recently joined with the Virginia Beach Rotary Club for the annual dinner honoring the Brickell Scholars, the selection of a new school superintendent was a hot topic. The gathering included the top 25 high-school juniors - many of whom have a grade-point average in excess of 4.0 - and an array of proud parents, School Board members, principals, School Board staff and political leaders.
One table included past School Board chairs and members - folks who had had a hand in the selection of the last four superintendents. Would these veterans of the superintendent search process be asked to advise the current board? All laughed and said this was unlikely, as the current board would wish to conduct its own search. When asked if the aphorism ``Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it'' applied, they said the historical files are available.
When asked what candidate profile would best fit the city's current needs, they offered these suggestions:
A good solid bureaucrat and good manager.
A low-profile and effective administrator.
A strong finance background.
A refusal to make policy by TV soundbite.
An ability to straighten out the confused, confusing and unfocused middle-school curriculum.
One venerable former board member likened school-district administration to plowing a field with the mule: You always want to keep the row straight by keeping your eyes fixed on the mark at the edges of the field. And you always rest the mule in the shade of a tree - not in the blazing sun.
What selection process would they suggest to the board?
Create a search committee. Include School Board members, a representative from the Virginia Beach Education Association, from the PTA, from the Chamber of Commerce and from parent advocacy groups, such as the Citizen Advisory Committee for the Gifted and Talented.
Have former School Board chairs brief the search committee early on.
Retain an inexpensive but effective consultant, such as the Virginia School Boards Association. The search should be as in-ex-pens-ive as possible.
Consider retaining Dr. Fred Bateman or some other knowledgeable, experienced current or former superintendent with the credentials, background and character of the most attractive candidates to check them. out. They can usually offer an immediate, candid evaluation of the character and fitness of a particular candidate, as well as the likely ``fit'' among the candidate, the board, City Council and citizen groups.
When the candidate list is down to three or five, arrange for visits, calls, etc.
The need for common sense was underscored by the evening's speaker, Dr. E. E. Brickell, current president of Eastern Virginia Medical School. Brickell praised the current class of Brickell Scholars for their diligence in overcoming education's love affair with various trendy, and usually short-lived, innovations. Brickell listed a number of them that came and went during his 21 years as Beach school superintendent.
Building schools without walls between classrooms is an example of what one parent later described as the recent history of ``experimenting willy-nilly with my child's education - and with my tax money.'' This parent, a major economic-development ``player,'' spoke rigorously for a strong, con-servative curriculum, one that makes Virginia Beach attractive to business. In this parent's opinion, leadership and philosophical changes in direction had reduced the school system's role in economic de-vel-op-ment.
A number of persons expressed concern about the middle-school curriculum. ``My 7th-grader,'' said one parent, ``has the same math homework as my 5th-grader - on the same night! A 7th-grader spending nine weeks learning how to measure, a skill he already had! Accelerating the last month of 7th-grade math with four math lessons a day, and now having to be tutored in math over the summer to make up for it!''
On site-based management, more than one parent echoed the need for citywide policy on some matters and concern at the apparent reduction of the principals' leadership role.
A final comment came from a per-son who spent 25 years as a citizen leader in K-12 and college and university work at the local, state and national level: ``Next to the U.S. Navy, the public schools are Virginia Beach's most important asset! As a community, we must do the job right this time!'' Joe Buchanan, a member of the Citizen Advisory Committee for the Gifted and Talented, is dean of of the Virginia Beach Campus of Tidewater Community College. By EDWARD G. KREYLING
The new school superintendent should be willing to accept the responsibility for improving the education of children in Virginia Beach. Such improvement would not be measured by student, parent or teacher surveys or by the number of new programs initiated. It would be measured by the improvements in learning as measured by SAT scores and scores on other standard tests. Any person who is not willing to accept this responsibility probably would not be able to improve the education of our children.
The new superintendent should be aware of the fact that the per-student amount, adjusted for inflation, will probably remain about the same for the next few years. The new superintendent should not be led to believe that great additional funds will be available. His commitment to improvement must be accepted at the current cost level.
The commitment for improvement should be for all students. We should expect improvement for the more gifted students, those who learn more slowly and those in between. A superior school system would have almost no students in the lower quartile and almost half in the top quartile. The new superintendent should be willing to accept this as a five-year goal.
To attain that goal, the superintendent would develop a strong administrative staff and a talented teacher corps. Parents would have to be enlisted as supporters of education and assistant teachers. Various community activities in support would be required.
The new superintendent should be advised that he/she will not be accountable for students who refuse to do the work necessary to obtain an education. ``Day care'' would be provided if funds allow, but there would be no pretense that such ``students'' were being educated. They would not be required to take tests, nor would they be counted toward the goal of improving education. Parents would be made aware that ``day care,'' not education, was being provided for their children.
A real improvement in education will be reflected in improved test scores. All other things - such as discipline, parental involvement, teacher education and ability, etc. - need not be reflected in the requirements as these are a must if education is to show improvement.
We don't need new programs that take years to develop, new buzz-words to impress and confuse, or new taxes for flagpoles. We do need basic education taught by competent teachers. We will get this if the goal is higher test scores. Mr. Kreyling is a former School Board member. By C. FRED BATEMAN
Several years ago, after a period of rapid turnover in the area, The Washington Post wondered if the school superintendency were an ``impossible job.'' I asked my friend Floretta MacKensie why she was leaving her job as superintendent of the Washington school system, and she said, ``I'm tired of getting up every morning and sticking my head into a propeller.''
Undoubtedly a superintendent is the most visible local educator who often gets little credit and much criticism. He or she has more to do with the success or failure of an educational program than any other single person.
Those who choose to seek the superintendency must be physically fit, mentally sharp and emotionally stable. Personal attacks must roll off like water on a duck's back. There must be a passion for improving learning conditions for children, and there must be a belief that one person can make a significant difference.
As you know, I shall be retiring at the end of July after 33 years in public education in Virginia. Nearly 30,000 students have graduated from Chesapeake's high schools during the time I have been superintendent. Much of the success of my tenure has been due to the nature of the community in which I work. Long before I arrived on the scene, there was a tradition of good solid public schools in each of Chesapeake's widely divergent communities.
The citizens want the basic skills emphasized and they don't like radical or experimental ideas. They want a fully comprehensive high school program with lots of extracurricular opportunities. They voted for five straight bond referenda for school construction during my time in Chesapeake, the last three of which called for tax increases. All passed overwhelmingly, without even one of Chesapeake's 36 precincts ever voting against a school referendum.
Because a superintendent is so visible and so personally involved with everything that is going on, there are personal attributes that are very necessary, too.
A superintendent must have vision, and must be able to articulate it clearly to patrons, policy-makers and employees. He or she must be able to transport everyone's perspective to the future - whether it is to view how learning conditions ought to be (five or 10 years hence) or simply to plan the physical location of schools on the drawing board. In short, the superintendent must know exactly where he or she wants to go and be able to persuade others of the validity of that plan.
The superintendent must have exquisite communications skills, and be equally as comfortable talking to a state senator or governor as he or she is talking with the most humble and uneducated citizen of the city. This includes not only the ability to speak and write but, equally important, the ability to listen patiently, whether to a politician's pompous speech or a child's call to the superintendent's private phone at home late at night with a simple plea.
A good superintendent is approachable. A self-centered or arrogant person should not be leading a school system and serving as a model for teachers and students.
A good superintendent knows what constitutes good teaching and learning and how to organize and deploy the resources to achieve it. He or she must be well read, with a thorough knowledge of the rapidly changing research on education - such as the latest studies on brain development in young children.
The person who serves as superintendent must be faultless in his or her private life. He or she must behave privately (and publicly, of course) with the highest moral and ethical standards. All efforts should be put forth to investigate what kind of personal human being a candidate is before turning over the community's children to him or her. Dig deep and look carefully at past behavior as well as previous professional performance.
Finally, a good superintendent must be a tireless and committed person who is willing to attend meetings throughout the community as the official representative of the school system. In many people's eyes he or she is the personification or the school system and they will judge its quality by what they think of him or her and the time he or she takes to attend community functions.
Of course, a candidate for superintendent must be well educated and must have successful experience in positions of leadership. Also, any plan for selection will involve community leaders, employees and students, not just the School Board. There is just too much at stake for the decision to be solely in the hands of a select few. C. Fred Bateman will be a professor of education at Old Dominion University.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT by CNB