School board swallows hard lessons

With the superintendent search in shambles, board members grapple with how to start over

By Todd Murphy

The Portland Tribune, Apr 23, 2002, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Battered, bruised and rejected, Portland Public Schools board members have huddled together in private executive sessions in the last few days to figure out where they might find a worthy Ñ and willing Ñ person to be the district’s next superintendent.

Those board meetings, including one Monday, followed a span of five days last week when three finalists for the superintendent’s job suddenly withdrew their candidacies in a succession that nearly obliterated six months of board work on the search.

Meanwhile, the board has reaffirmed its confidence in Interim Superintendent Jim Scherzinger’s leading the district for now, suggesting it might be awhile before a permanent superintendent is found.

Which gives Portlanders time to analyze this: What went so wrong?

How does Oregon’s largest school district spend half a year and $92,000 on an executive search firm to look for a chief executive Ñ and offer a salary of up to $175,000 a year Ñ and not find a new superintendent?

Here are the contributing factors. Or maybe not.

• • •

They went after people they were never going to get.

Yes, that was it.

The school board’s four finalists were urban district superintendents who had enjoyed significant success in their own communities. When the communities learned of the Portland flirtations, they inevitably went on the defense, offering giant community hugs Ñ or hinting of hefty raises.

Meanwhile, none of the Portland finalists were local people who loved and understood the city and school district. Nor were any of the finalists accomplished people in nonsuperintendent jobs who could have considered the job without spurring their own communities to rally to keep them from going to Portland.

Ñ

No, that wasn’t the problem.

School board members said they seriously considered some “nontraditional” candidates Ñ people who weren’t superintendents or part of K-12 educational bureaucracies. The board also considered candidates from Portland and Oregon, although it’s not clear how seriously.

Still, in assessing superintendent qualities, the board pointed to a citizens advisory committee report last fall that said the community preferred a superintendent who had experience managing another urban school district.

Board members also talked of the need for a candidate who understood education and had experience closing the achievement gap between minority and white children.

“When you start looking for those qualities, it does tend to get you back to urban superintendents,” said board member Marc Abrams.

• • •

The board’s long public hiring process drove the finalists away.

Yes, that was it.

The board’s cumbersome process of bringing in finalists for two days of semipublic interviews with community groups meant that everyone in the finalists’ home districts knew they were being seriously considered for the job.

As the board continued that process with four finalists Ñ then waited for community reaction Ñ over almost seven weeks, it meant that the finalists were in limbo back home while waiting for a Portland answer. Finalists’ enthusiasm about Portland began to evaporate.

Toward the end, the angst felt by two remaining finalists presumably grew even greater as Portland board members spoke publicly about trying to get another finalist Ñ Charlotte, N.C., schools Superintendent Eric Smith Ñ to change his mind about withdrawing.

“There’s a point when you go public with your finalists, you’ve got to close the deal pretty fast (or) you’ve got a mess on your hands,” said Paul Houston, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators.

Ñ

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