From the School Committee:
The Newburyport School Committee has initiated its search for a new superintendent. A key step in this process is to identify the characteristics that the Newburyport community is seeking in our new superintendent. There will be a community forum on Monday, November 9th at 7pm in the RAN/Molin Auditorium. Your input is important, because it helps us to find a candidate who is the best match for Newburyport. The entire Newburyport community is invited to attend.
For more information about the Superintendent Search, please go to: http://www.newburyport.k12.ma.us/supt.html
7 comments:
I nominate James Shanley for the job. He doesn't have an Ed PhD, but I'll bet he could manage the operation just fine.
Hah. Prior to the election someone suggested Donna would be the better mayor because she had educational experience to help the schools. I countered that Shanley could hire her as superintendent if she's really that good. The person stepped back saying, well, she doesn't have the qualifications to be superintendent.
It'll be interesting to see how superintendent candidates will view working for a mayor who ran so vigorously on her educational expertise.
Will they be concerned over micro-managing, a lack of control or too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen kind of dynamic? Or, one could argue, Donna would bring a new level of accountability. But will they want to adhere to that level?
The truly good ones would, I suppose.
But Tom, I think John Moak was always a strong advocate for the schools, and he got Kevin Lyons in here. In any case, you have to go through a certification process to be a school superintendent.
So neither Holaday nor Shanley could be the superintendent.
Btw, I believe Deirdre Farrell is going through the certification process now - and I don't think she is an Ed PhD.
Thanks Gillian.
I actually knew certification was required. My larger point--and one that I failed to make--was that Donna Holaday's educational experience doesn't necessarily mean she'll be any more or less successful in helping the schools.
What the schools need are a strong superintendent (which we had in Lyons) and a mayor who supports her/him and provides the best resources available (which Moak did.)
So I think we agree.
Oh I wasn't disagreeing, just clarifying that which did not need to be clarified!
Do I need to note that the super reports to the School Committee? I think a critical piece of this, election-wise, is that Holaday told me in the CEB interview that she would in all likelihood run the SC meetings (which Moak does not) whereas Shanley said he would let the vice chair run the meetings (as Moak does).
Holaday also relies a lot on reports from others - at least she does as chair of budget & finance. I don't know how much time she'll have for micro-managing, but I'd guess this is the one area where it could happen.
I and others in the local news delivery system will be attending a focus group next Tuesday as part of the search process. The kind of discussion that is going on here is very helpful to me, in that regard.
So keep it up.
I hope to be there as well. GET YOUR OWN DISCUSSION!! :)
Ooooh, I was trying not to duplicate your discussion!
Hope you can make it on Tuesday.
And Ari, you stopped blogging about the city a while back, so ... no, you're not really, in my opinion. Plus you were running for a seat on the board that has to approve the appointment. That would seem to be a conflict.
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