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Call your favorite superintendent … now!

Posted on November 11, 2010 by Staff

Steve Peha

Citizens of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, your school district needs you! With 11 weeks until the application period closes on the superintendent search, we have zero candidates to choose from because the application was only recently posted.

Jan. 31 is the deadline. It’s also the deadline for our hopes and dreams of bringing real leadership to our district.

The time crunch bodes ill. But there is something we can do, something we must do if we’re going to get a reasonable pool of high-quality candidates: help drive this search ourselves.

I’m working to contact talented prospects before everybody shuts down for the holiday season. I’ve spent hours talking with top-tier candidates around the country. At present, few are considering applying. None has begun the application process. All are hesitant.

Why the cold feet? Because people with major talent have major jobs, and because it’s a long and often tedious ordeal to apply for a superintendent’s position. The professional commitments of top-tier leaders can rarely accommodate such a compressed timeline. Few leaders of any stature can leave their current job at a moment’s notice, which, in superintendent time, is exactly what our search process would seem to demand.

A member of the school board told me that the board would make no such personal overtures, that they would let the process do the work. I was assured by another board member that there is no pre-selected “winner” or even a favorite. This means the field is wide open. I fear, however, that our process will attract only typical candidates, those who happen to chance upon the typical ads we’re placing in typical publications and through the typical state school boards association network.

We’re not a typical school district. We deserve better than the typical candidates our typical process is likely to attract. And we can do better if we’re willing to put in the effort required. But we can’t assume that “the process” on its own will deliver the leader we’re looking for.

Choosing a superintendent is the most critical decision any school district has to make. You and I can’t choose the next one. But we can ensure that our board has good options to pick from.

Here’s what we don’t need: very few people applying; only people who were fired from their previous position; only past superintendents, as opposed to talented non-traditional candidates; only people who want this job because it’s Chapel Hill-Carrboro and they think they can sleep through the next 20 years like we’ve been sleeping through the past 20 – we don’t need Dr. Rip Van Winkle. We’d be wise to ignore titles and focus on smart people who propose innovative solutions to our most pressing problems.

Here’s what we do need: a person with a plan to lead teachers and administrators in improving instruction so we can close the achievement gap by raising performance for all students. Sure, there’s more to it, but that’s it in a nutshell. It’s also a good opening line to use when you’re talking to prospective applicants.

Our best candidates will come from the “reform” sector (Achieve, Teach For America, the Broad Superintendent’s Academy, the New Teacher Project, New Leaders for New Schools, etc.), the private sector (our school district is roughly the size of a $100 million company), the independent-school sector (probably the best pool of experienced leadership talent that most closely matches the culture of our district) or from a small set of talented first-time superintendents (innovative district administrators who can lead us with a striking vision into a new era).

You don’t have to be an education expert to help us find our next superintendent. I just ask other talented people who they recommend. I then contact these folks by email or phone. Don’t just drop a holiday card in the mail with a “p.s.” at the bottom about becoming a candidate. Talk to people. Many people. And keep talking until they say “yes” or “no.”

We’re all in this together, folks. If we don’t get good candidates, we don’t get a good super. If we don’t get a good super, we get 20 more years of the same old same old. That’s almost two generations of kids sacrificed on the altar of poor timing. That’s not how we roll here in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. So let’s get rolling on finding our next superintendent.

Steve Peha is founder and president of Carrboro-based Teaching That Makes Sense Inc.

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