APS Superintendent Search; Phase Two

There will be two phases in the APS board’s search for their next superintendent that involve “public input”.

The first phase ends with the last of several public fora around the district, the purpose of which is to gather community input on hiring criteria in order to create a “superintendent profile". The profile will then be used to select the new superintendent.

Rather than to suggest that the data gathered is meaningless; that it will not move the needle one iota in the board’s selection of the next superintendent, it will be left up to those whose should be able to defend the utility of the data, and to point its actual effect on decision making.

By way of illustration, consider the number of expensive bus tours around the district that the leadership of the APS has taken and their abject inability upon their return, to point to a single thing they learned on the ride, that they should not have already known.

The final opportunities for stake and interest holders to participate in person in the selection of their next superintendent will be in March or April of next year. The board promises; that (after a number of meetings in secret during which the finalists will be actually selected) there will be several community forums during which people will meet and listen to the individual APS superintendent candidates.

They further promise; “You will be able to submit questions …”
Do not suppose that you will be able to ask any candidate a specific question.

If, for example, you want to ask;

Are you willing and able to stand up as a role model of honest accountability to the same standards of conduct that you will enforce upon students?

your question will not survive the filtering process. It will not be asked in an open and honest public meeting.

The board further promises; you will able “to provide your input on the candidates. Written input from audiences will be provided to members of the Board of Education for its consideration".

If you think that the board’s “consideration” of a legitimate question will include a candid, forthright and honest response, you would be wrong.

If, for example, your written input includes the question;

Why will you not be held honestly accountable to the same standards of conduct that you establish and then enforce upon students?

they will not respond.

Try as you may, the selection process for the next superintendent will not contain an open and honest public discussion of ethics, standards, accountability and role modeling in the leadership of the APS.

It is the elephant in the room.

It is the third rail APS’ effort to mislead stake and interest holders.
If they touch it, they’ll vanish in a puff of smoke.