People may not realize it, but public schools are operated out in the open, in plain view of the citizens they serve and who pay the bills, to a much greater degree than in years past.
These days, parents are invited into the education process more as partners than as mere observers. Sometimes, one would imagine, that could spell trouble for teachers, say, when a parent takes the role more to heart than is intended. Nevertheless, this attitude of openness and shared responsibility is evident throughout our school districts.
This is in sharp contrast to the days when students and their parents were both treated as inferiors better advised to leave the serious business of education to the professionals. If parents didn't like what a teacher was doing, they'd be counseled to stay out of the matter, as the teacher knew best.
This is a much healthier environment for education, obviously, as it encourages learning to take place during all waking hours. If parents know precisely what is expected of their children and why, they are better able to augment what goes on in the classroom during after-school hours.
Now, the concept of community participation has spread even to the processes involved in the selection of administrators.
In districts throughout the North Country, it is now common for the choice of whom to hire as superintendent to be placed before the public for participation and comment.
Typically, candidates for superintendent will be solicited through standard advertising practices. A school board or a committee designated by the board might pare down the list. When, from that list, three or more are picked as finalists, the real process begins.
The board will generally interview the finalists at least once and will often visit their current places of employment to speak with co-workers there. Faculty members are often invited to interview them — or maybe to chat less formally with them.
Usually, a public forum is scheduled, at which time interested parents, taxpayers or just community observers will be given the opportunity to meet the candidates and weigh in on the decision if they choose.
The eventual decision will be made by the school board, of course. But if, somewhere during the superintendent's tenure, members of the public become dissatisfied with the superintendent's performance, they can't say the person was thrust upon them with no opportunity to engage in any oversight in the hiring. In other words, if you don't like the person, you can't say you didn't have the chance to pick up ahead of time on the traits you now don't like.
Lake Placid Central School is one local district that is in the process of choosing a new superintendent, and the process has gone according to form.
In most areas in the rural North Country the school superintendent is the center of the community, because the school is. The community ought to have some say over who gets the job. And now, finally, it does.
Opinion
January 27, 2010
EDITORIAL: Education is now the business of the general public
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