BOE Claims It Can Find Next Superintendent
Dear Norwalk Superintendent Candidate,
We’re excited to have you interview with the Norwalk Public School System. You may have heard a few things about us. The fact that you’re reading here is a good sign, you know how to use Google. Our previous superintendent, Sal Corda, wasn’t such a bad guy, but he was a lousy manager and a horrible leader of the business side of running a school district. Those are important things, and we’ll come back to those later. First though, we must have a frank discussion about our political and elected body the board of education (BOE). They have appointed themselves the review committee. It’s ironic that they view themselves as most qualified to conduct a search when they have failed to provide not only academic guidance to our previous superintendent, but also have encouraged the waste of millions of tax payer dollars outside of classroom focused instruction.
Like all rigged games, there’s a way to score well on their evaluations. Consider this our gift to you, the cheat sheet to the BOE.
1. Don’t use big words. The educational aptitude of this board is rather low. Complex sentence structure and complex ideas are beyond their grasp.
2. Don’t bruise their egos. They will react negatively to the “I” word. They think that they are part of the educational “team” and therefor represent the educational administration. Encourage the perception that they matter, but really they will just rubber stamp any proposal that you pitch, especially if you throw in enough references to test scores.
3. Say you’ll move to Norwalk if you don’t already live here. They are sensitive to the issue of local talent at the expense of administrative experience. Its a long story.
4. Say your focus is on delivering the best education to Norwalk’s children. We really know that your focus is on herding administrators and educators to do more with less, wrangle with unfunded mandates and secure as much money to make it all happen. Unfortunately they don’t want to hear those things, they want to hear the superficial promises that make them feel good.
That should do the trick. If you really want to know what’s going on, we suggest that you actually visit some schools, talk to a few teachers and principals and review the PTO minutes. They really know what is going on in the schools.
Overall Norwalk Public Schools are a great opportunity for some young administrator like yourself. You can make a difference here if you really make a commitment to shifting funding ratios towards classroom education and away from administrative functions. You have some real deadwood still preventing that from happening. You’ll need to tap into volunteer parents and eager teachers that have been dying to work with someone that will listen. We hope you are good at listening and being inclusive in how to solve problems. Our past superintendent was a tad too jaded to embrace that community participation.
If you’re the type of superintendent that wants to increase the size of Education Inc. here in Norwalk, then you’re not going to be a good fit. If you’re the type of superintendent that wants to empower the schools to achieve real educational goals while you battle the state bureaucrats on their behalf, then you’re our type of superintendent. Meanwhile, you still have to get through your interview process with our BOE. Good luck, and keep in mind that we are always here.
Sincerely,
The readers of yourCT.com.
