I want to talk about the Superintendent Search first-off: I was in the Search Committee for the Superintendent, and yes, I didn't do a post on that. I probably would have if my laptop screen didn't take a shot in the face and get cracked, so I'm sorry on that one. The skinny for the search was that in the first search committee, it was a general round-table discussion on what we as the "community" look for in a Superintendent.
I put "community" in quotes because the search committee was three former School Board members who were responsible for Quinn; an endorsed, an unendorsed, and the phantom Democratic candidate for School Board; six members of the Home and School; and myself, who as of the Republican Endorsement Committee Meeting, wasn't running for school board. Ergo, I was the only "community" member who had little to no affiliation to the school board. Which, don't act surprised; it's typical of Methacton to act this way, to keep the majority of the community in the dark for the new Superintendent, or pretty much everything at all. The final meeting of the Superintendent was another Search Committee, and the public got to meet Dr. David Zerbe after he was hired, while the public at large didn't even meet Dr. Christopher Nagy, the other candidate for Superintendent.
So when you look at the vote, 6-2-1, it shouldn't be a huge surprise that two members of the board--Cathleen Barone and Maria Shackelford--voted against hiring Dr. Zerbe. Although the board members will (presumably) work with the new Superintendent since he was hired, I can't say that 100% of the no vote was symbolic. But hey, I give both of them credit for voicing their concerns with the process of something this freakin' major.
There were 27 candidates for the Superintendent job, and only two candidates were chosen for interview. I've heard that the third candidate just didn't show, which begs the question "they couldn't call up candidate #4?", and if you got to meet both of the candidates, you would have a problem, too.
Dr. Nagy is a very, very smart man. He a cerebral thinker, very calm and talks with a low voice. Dr. Zerbe came into the committee with energy and he felt very approachable. Dr. Nagy didn't want to hear about cutting the budget, while Dr. Zerbe was used to dealing with a school district with declining enrollment. Dr. Nagy was a High School Superintendent in New Jersey, and Dr. Zerbe was an Assistant Superintendent at Pocono Mountain School District. Dr. Nagy lived in Washington's Crossing and preferred to live there if he was hired, while Dr. Zerbe is going to move to the school district come next year (to let his daughter--who is a Senior--graduate from her school district). It was literally Yin and Yang with these two candidates--there should have been a third one, just so nobody felt like you were picking from hot coffee or cold iced tea.
So, Kudos to Barone and Shakelford for calling out the ineptitude of the whole process, and congratulations to Dr. David Zerbe for becoming our new Superintendent. However, the fact that this whole process not only felt rushed, but was kept out of the light, is a problem that the board, as a whole, should seek to fix. But if only two people out of nine think it's a problem, then it will be a while.
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What was more fun was the work session meeting, which was after the "Special Meeting", where the policy committee actually read board policy to the board. Aside from being incredibly interesting (note: read with sarcasm), this was probably the first time since, I dunno, Van Horn was on the board. Either way, the meeting normally would have lasted thirty minutes, but I guess they wanted to show the new Superintendent that this board is a real school board, for realizies.
(If you want to download the policy committee's First Readings, click here)
Well, since there isn't the video posted to the YouTube account, I can't really reference the video to make sure my facts are straight (and I'm going to be honest; I had a hard time paying attention to some of what happened Tuesday), but here goes: When it came to Policy #011: Board Governance/Code of Conduct, members of the Board and the President seemed to have a disagreement. While Mrs. Petrauskas initially agreed that the Board doesn't do a good enough job at governing itself, it became a problem not two minutes later that the Policy Committee wasn't a "Committee of the Whole".
The Policy Committee is Maria Shackelford, Kim Woodring, and Jim Phillips. However, Mr. Phillips apparently hasn't been able to meet at the scheduled time, and wasn't able to have it changed with the committee, so he hasn't been there (I've gone to two of them, and they are once per month). I don't know why it wasn't made so Mr. Phillips could show up, or if that couldn't be met, why he hasn't resigned from is position because he can't show up, but I do know that two out of three people is 67%, which is enough of a majority to do anything you want in Congress. Even if Mr. Phillips disagreed with everything the Policy Committee did, as long as the other two are cool with it, it would still go on since he would be in the minority.
The reason Mrs. Petrauskas decided to pick at that point is probably because she didn't agree with what the Policy Committee deliberated, since she flat-out disagreed with the idea of Board President Term Limits. But to show that she was open-minded (or maybe she was open-minded to the Boards shortfalls, which I'm sure she is), she agreed at first. It doesn't look good to agree with something then decide to split it's hairs for the rest of the night.
And it's all well and good that the board decided to hash out Civility now (Board Policy #012), since they failed to enact it two months ago when Mr. Roth went on a diatribe about a resident to alluded to Mr. Roth receiving money from the Board could look like Nepotism to anyone else, and Mr. Roth decided to respond with anger about an accusation (which, there wasn't one), coupled with a threat that Roth and the resident can "take this outside". When the said resident tried to retort Mr. Roth's lengthy, temper tantrum-ish speech, select members of the Board (Mr. Nascimento) and Administration (Mr. Harney) were laughing at the resident. Mr. Nascimento even went as far to say "Don't trip over the dead horse" while his microphone was on.
(By the way, Mr. Roth and Mr. Nascimento are running for re-election.)
What did the Board President, and the rest of the Board, do? Nothing. They just sat there. It's all good to say "Yeah, we should have done a better job" two months after the fact, but someone there had a chance to stop it, especially the President (or even the Vice). Crunch time came, and no one there had a backbone. The Board that night acted like High Schoolers, and that's freakin' embarrassing.
Whether or not the members of the Board consider themselves "volunteers", they are public officials once they sit on that Board. That behavior is inexcusable.
(If you want to download the policy committee's First Readings, click here)
Well, since there isn't the video posted to the YouTube account, I can't really reference the video to make sure my facts are straight (and I'm going to be honest; I had a hard time paying attention to some of what happened Tuesday), but here goes: When it came to Policy #011: Board Governance/Code of Conduct, members of the Board and the President seemed to have a disagreement. While Mrs. Petrauskas initially agreed that the Board doesn't do a good enough job at governing itself, it became a problem not two minutes later that the Policy Committee wasn't a "Committee of the Whole".
The Policy Committee is Maria Shackelford, Kim Woodring, and Jim Phillips. However, Mr. Phillips apparently hasn't been able to meet at the scheduled time, and wasn't able to have it changed with the committee, so he hasn't been there (I've gone to two of them, and they are once per month). I don't know why it wasn't made so Mr. Phillips could show up, or if that couldn't be met, why he hasn't resigned from is position because he can't show up, but I do know that two out of three people is 67%, which is enough of a majority to do anything you want in Congress. Even if Mr. Phillips disagreed with everything the Policy Committee did, as long as the other two are cool with it, it would still go on since he would be in the minority.
The reason Mrs. Petrauskas decided to pick at that point is probably because she didn't agree with what the Policy Committee deliberated, since she flat-out disagreed with the idea of Board President Term Limits. But to show that she was open-minded (or maybe she was open-minded to the Boards shortfalls, which I'm sure she is), she agreed at first. It doesn't look good to agree with something then decide to split it's hairs for the rest of the night.
And it's all well and good that the board decided to hash out Civility now (Board Policy #012), since they failed to enact it two months ago when Mr. Roth went on a diatribe about a resident to alluded to Mr. Roth receiving money from the Board could look like Nepotism to anyone else, and Mr. Roth decided to respond with anger about an accusation (which, there wasn't one), coupled with a threat that Roth and the resident can "take this outside". When the said resident tried to retort Mr. Roth's lengthy, temper tantrum-ish speech, select members of the Board (Mr. Nascimento) and Administration (Mr. Harney) were laughing at the resident. Mr. Nascimento even went as far to say "Don't trip over the dead horse" while his microphone was on.
(By the way, Mr. Roth and Mr. Nascimento are running for re-election.)
What did the Board President, and the rest of the Board, do? Nothing. They just sat there. It's all good to say "Yeah, we should have done a better job" two months after the fact, but someone there had a chance to stop it, especially the President (or even the Vice). Crunch time came, and no one there had a backbone. The Board that night acted like High Schoolers, and that's freakin' embarrassing.
Whether or not the members of the Board consider themselves "volunteers", they are public officials once they sit on that Board. That behavior is inexcusable.
Well said. Board members should be setting a positive example for our students.
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, you dodged a bullet with Nagy there. I was a teacher when he was the Prinicpal at the Allentown High School in the Upper Freehold Regional School District. He was without a doubt the worst principal I have ever seen. He was fantastic when it came to the budget, but did little else. Did not discipline students effectively (in fact, toward the end of the school year, so many kids were in the hall during class time, you wouldn't be able to walk through the hall without touching someone.) Wasn't around when he was needed, was way out of touch with students (brought in irrelevant speakers for assemblies who talked about things that nobody cared about), made a decision not to renew my contract without even having seen me teach and let the Assistant Superintendent do his dirty work to let me know. I'm not saying I was the best teacher - I'm not even saying that I didn't deserve to be non-renewed. I am saying that with some guidance, I could have been a lot more of a teacher that could fit in with the expectations of that school. The problem is that he had no guidance to give because he was ineffective as a school leader. I'll gamble that he was equally or even more ineffective as a superintendent as well since he began his Superintendent career in Northern Valley Regional in 2011 and at the end of 2013 he's already looking for a new school. Maybe he should go back to being a priest, and your school board should have interviewed #4 and #5.
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