Competing schools hire top school talent

Submitted by Hari Titan on

The HYA “characteristic” poll results and community feedback on selection criteria for superintendent of schools are now available on the School Board meeting packet. Based on how most jobs are posted, I interpret the HYA poll as trying to find out goals or duties of the job, not identifying any measurable qualifications of the candidate to be able to achieve these goals. HYA disregarded numerous complaints about this discrepancy.

HYA does not reference any objective required qualifications in their proposal to the School Board. HYA did re-post the job on Edjoin requiring essentially a career school administrator with state-level credentials.

HYA refers to our community as being “well-educated" and their letter refers to maintaining high “academic” standards a number of times, and both the public and the school board chose a “clear vision of what is required to provide exemplary educational services” as one of their top 3 goals. I did not see any job requirements that tie into these goals.

My suggestion that the School Board give preference to student's first choice universities is being taken by our competing schools: The Head of Schools from Head Royce has a Masters from Dartmouth (ranked #11 nationwide). The CPS Head of Schools has a Masters from Case Western Reserve (ranked #37 nationwide). The Palo Alto superintendent of schools has a PhD from U. Chicago (ranked #4 nationwide) and over a decade of credentials promoting STEM education.

Most of these superintendents did not go to "Ivy League" universities. Also I never said we should hire exclusively from the few east-coast "Ivy League" schools, nor should we be ruling them out. I spoke about giving a hiring preference for "top schools", based on their ranking (e.g. US News): http://www.usnews.com/rankings and / or the schools our kids want to get into (as their first preference). This was meant to give a leg up for our students independent of their specific college matriculation goals.

At the end of the year, one of the hardest jobs of a superintendent is to maintain or improve the academic ranking of PUSD amongst other school districts. To pursue this goal, the superintendent should help the District prepare students (both academically and socially) for university, should they choose to take that route. Another challenge our superintendent has is to not lose students to local private schools or competing school districts in the Bay Area. Hiring for these toughest components of the job is a prudent and wise strategy.

A superintendent who went to one of the universities that many of our kids are trying to get into would have personal experience and insights that should give our kids a leg up. Does our assistant superintendent (with a Masters from St Mary's College) have that insight? Why should the School Board consider all university degrees as being equivalent to each other?

Randy Booker: http://www.insidebayarea.com/california/ci_18756021

The only way to find this position on EdJoin.com requires a job search for positions requiring applicants be certificated for employment as a superintendent. Here is the Ed Join link (note the top of the search requirements) and clicking the one link (Alameda County) will reveal the position for Superintendent of PUSD:

https://www.edjoin.org/Home/Jobs?keywords=&searchType=all&states=24&regi...

The State of California Certification for Superintendents is not a state requirement to have prior to employment but an optional requirement the District / HYA has chosen for this position. The State credentialing requirements for administrators are on the State of California Commission on Teacher Credentialing website:

http://www.ctc.ca.gov/credentials/leaflets/cl574c.pdf

You will notice it requires 5 years on the job experience as well as passing various exams. I would say this decision results in restricting candidates to career administrators.

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