THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 27, 1995 TAG: 9510260236
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Beth Barber
LENGTH: Short : 49 lines
Why is a School Board that paid so little heed to what was happening under the former superintendent so hot to get hopping on a new superintendent? Board members must think they can thus redeem themselves, or at least change the subject.
The superintendent-search firm the board engaged (no trouble finding that finders' fee, apparently) has come up with more than three dozen applications, which the board will review next week. Thirty-nine applications for a school system in the disarray and deficit of this one? Either there's a real surfeit of superintendents or superintendent wannabes, or pickings out in superintendent-land are unbelievably poor.
This school system doesn't even know for sure - yet - how much it was in deficit last year, but the minimum is $7.4 million. Last it counted, it was $6 million-plus short only four months into the current school year.
Gluttons for punishment or superheroes, the applicants can't even know the dimensions of the problems here. Makes it kind of hard to present solutions.
There are always people who crave a challenge, and others who figure nothing can be worse than the job they're in. Incredibly, that's possible: Beach schools may be the frying pan but New York City's are the fire.
But a new superintendent from outside faces more than a bookkeeping problem. He or she will have been selected by a board whose lack of credibility on budgets, personnel and judgment generally is exceeded only by its credulity in the most dubious numbers and bigwigs ever to hit the Municipal Center.
Why not postpone the superintendent search until the budgets are fully bared by the auditors, until the fingers are pointed and the names named by whoever has the moral and legal authority to be believed? It's only days to the initial audit report. It's only months to the School Board election.
Meantime, why not stick with Jim Pughsley as interim superintendent? He's disclosed more financial data in his four months at the top than his predecessor did in four years. He was around during some of the mess, true; but no direct blame has attached to him. And the clincher is this: The man's been around long enough to know who's been helpful and who hasn't among administrative personnel left standing. It would take a newcomer years, and a bunch of budgets, to sort that out. by CNB