Roy Exum: We Are Not Alone

  • Monday, April 25, 2016
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum

The editorial reads like a mirror. “The reputation of the school board has taken a hit over the years, and it has been described as fractured, divided and dysfunctional. Social media agitation by some members, continuing fights over charter schools and last year’s failed superintendent search … to put it bluntly, the message board members need to hear is: Don’t screw this up.” Oh, and one more, “They need to know the whole community is watching.”

David Plazas, a writer for the Nashville Tennessean, also wrote on the Sunday editorial page that the Nashville Public Education Foundation – through a new education initiative called “Project RESET,” found that last year Nashville schools were performing most poorly of all school districts in Tennessee.” (RESET stands for ‘Reimagining Education Starts with Everyone at the Table.’)

At first the somber news is somewhat refreshing – it means Hamilton County is not alone – but the irony is that Nashville has all the marks the Metro Schools are pulling out of its nose-dive while Chattanooga, thanks to five of the county’s school board commissioners, showed signs at Thursday night’s special called meeting the HCDE continues to go down in a growing debacle.

A sense of sheer helpless grabbed an irate Chattanooga public and parents by the throat last week when three former educators, Joe Galloway, David Testerman, and the Rev. Steve Highlander, teamed with the board’s two black members, George Ricks and Karitsa Mosely, in a highly-suspicious coup. By doing so, the school board appointed Acting School Superintendent Kirk Kelly by a 5-4 vote to the Interim position. Using the same repugnant crowbar so telling of the political evil in the HCDE, the same Kelly could well become the permanent superintendent in later voting.

Kelly is a nice and gentle man. He hardly deserves the rancor, the apathy, and the disregard that will follow him during his term as Interim. Then again, he should have never allowed himself to become a candidate after he once caused a $125,000 judgement to be settled against the Department of Education. Worst, the legal action was brought by attorney Andy Berke, now the mayor which brings added drama.

It was proven in 1997 that Kelly had bullied and harassed a teacher. Since, he has lived an almost hermit-like role in the system’s central office and there is an open belief, as the assistant ‘super’ over testing and accountability, Kelly is partially accountable for the deplorable state the HCDE is now in.

The crowning blow came last Thursday. After the other two finalists, Shaun Sadler and Jill Levine, were so polished and eloquent in their public interviews many in the standing-room only crowd actually felt sorry for Kelly as he stumbled through his appearance, even as gentle as the questions were.

The highly-touted Chattanooga 2.0 project was hit hard by Kelly’s appointment – this since over 100 of its leaders and backers are demanding a total change. Far bigger, the worst repercussions will come from the Hamilton County mayor and the county commissioners who are hardly blind as they have watched what has transpired in the Department of Education in the last four months. There is rising thought they will refuse to fund parts of the budget “until the school board can convince me we aren’t continuing to throw taxpayer money into something that doesn’t work.”

Unlike the Hamilton County School Board that has pushed away offers to help, on Friday Nashville School Board Chair Sharon Gentry issued a plea for the community to be involved in helping select the right leadership for Tennessee’s largest district: “… we once again ask the community to step up and help guide us to the right decision for the children of Nashville,” she said in a new release.

The story in the Tennessean cited a real “urgency” to stabilize the Metro School system because many middle-class parents are pulling their children out of the system and placing them in Williamson, Wilson and Sumner counties. This is due to the fact the poverty rate in the Metro system now exceeds 70 percent, there is a 35-percent mobility rate, and a rash of poor decisions made by the school board and the leaders of the Metro schools.

Nashville Mayor Megan Barry was indignant after the first attempt to find a superintendent collapsed in such an embarrassing fashion. So she put together a virtual Who’s Who of Nashville leaders to serve on a task force. They recognized the Metro system needed (1) consensus building in the community, (2) change … thinking ‘outside the box,’ and (3) a person experienced in working with diverse student populations.

The selection process in Nashville will actually begin on May 3 when the candidates will be chosen from hundreds of applications. On May 5 there will be exhaustive candidate interviews, from 8 a.m. until after 6 p.m., and the finalists will be announced the next morning. There will be more rigorous interviews with each of the three finalists between May 10 and May 13 that will include each appearing in community forum at three different Nashville schools.

Search recruiter Jim Huge, who is known for providing over 50 metro school districts with leaders, has sent a list of “protocols” to the Nashville School Board. It requests the school board “look at a candidate’s “total package;” successes, experience, skills and personality. It also urges members to bring any “due diligence” issues to him to avoid public embarrassment.

Hoge, based out of Reno, Nev., insists the school board members have no outside conversations with any candidate “to assure fairness” and that questions should not include explicit or political comments. “Enjoy this … get to know the candidates …”

And, the best? “While we are looking at them, they are looking at you … Each candidate will consider board conduct … the ability to engage in civil discourse … as well as (your) interactions with each other and in public statements.”

The Hamilton County School Board has not announced by what method the permanent superintendent will be chosen … or if the board hasn’t already done so.

Royexum@aol.com

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