Archive: Opinions

EditorialI've said it before.  I don't care how the school board does it, I just want them to hire an experienced, qualified superintendent who is right for the community and will guide Lansing into and beyond the next decade.  If that means trusting the Board of Education to do it using the best means at their disposal and their own best sense of what is right for the district, that's OK with me.  After all, we elected these seven people to...  well, to use the best means at their disposal and their own best judgment to lead the district.

Some might argue that the end doesn't justify the means.  In other words, that excluding the community is worse than getting the very best person for the job.  In a sellers market where there are more open administrative positions by far than there are qualified administrators to fill them, the two big issues for a district going shopping are salary and confidentiality.  The qualified people already have jobs, and if they are not chosen they want to keep them, so confidentiality is important to them.  Sure, it is lovely to have a lot of community input (which, by the way, can still be a major element of a confidential search), but if it yields a lousy superintendent or a good one who won't stay, what was the point of the exercise?

Besides, saying that the means isn't justified by the end seems to me to be confusing hiring a person with the real end: to give our kids the best possible education in the best way that reflects our community's values.  So think about those values for a minute.  The community is justifiably proud of its schools.  Despite being a small district we score high in academic achievement, student retention, athletics, music and the arts.  Lansing kids are nurtured, but not spoiled at school.  Lansing provides the best kind of environment for students to succeed in, and they do.  That not only gives them knowledge, but the self-confidence to use it.  They are engaged in their community, make lasting friendships, and are all-around well balanced, good people.

That's a pretty good end, and when you take the hiring process in that context it seems less significant than it does when you look at it as an isolated process.  Getting the right people is, perhaps, more important than the more touch-feely approach where everyone has direct input, which School Board President Tom Keane notes has been conflicting and confusing in past searches.

Finally there is the matter of trust.  Many in the public have accused the school board of not fostering trust in the community.  It is true, they could have done many things better in terms of reaching out to the community in appropriate ways.  But trust is a two way street.  Isn't voting for someone an expression of trust?  Why can't we trust our school board, made of seven people of differing opinions who all seem to me to be earnest in their desire to make the district better (and for no pay)?  We voted for all seven of them, in some cases more than once.  The way the system works is that if we don't like how an elected official performs, we vote him or her out the next time.  Meanwhile we need to give them a chance to do what we elected them to do.

I think that despite the quality and success of our school system that kids (and parents) have suffered from the lack of consistent leadership in the superintendent's office.  It will be hard enough, with Lansing's increasingly troubling reputation for spitting out administrators, to attract the right person for this job and for our community.  As a community we should start acting like getting a better result matters to us.  I support the school board's 'compromise' approach that will involve a small committee of stakeholders in a process that if all the committee members cooperate could bring the right superintendent to Lansing.

My opinion actually matches school board member Mike Cheatham's -- that a confidential search limited to the seven school board members will bring the biggest pool of more qualified candidates.  I really think it is probably the most effective way to achieve our goals as a district. 

But the board has resolved to conduct a more open search, and their reasons seem reasonable to me.  I don't have to agree with them 100% to support them, nor am I always right about everything.  So I think we should let them do what we elected them to do.  And I hope that trust will yield the result that Lansing wants.

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