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Highlands Today

School Superintendent Selection Workshop Is A Great Idea

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Highlands Today Staff

Published: September 16, 2007

The Highlands County School Board is on to a great idea. They want to "workshop" the possibility of changing the way we hire school superintendents in our district. We like the idea of considering whether the board appoints school superintendents or whether they are elected.

As most folks know, in Highlands County we elect our school superintendent. It's done that way in some smaller districts around the state, but the majority of districts hire superintendents.

For many people moving here from other areas, it seems strange that the school superintendent is an elected office. No special education is necessary to land this important post, and no experience is necessary. If you get enough people to vote for you, and have the money to run for office, you have as good of a chance as someone who has spent his or her entire life administering and teaching. Having someone unqualified in that position is scary to a lot of people.

Something that's important to remember here is this is not an indictment of current Superintendent Wally Cox. We believe he's a good man and works hard for the district. But we also believe this county deserves the very best educational leader we can find. Perhaps that's Cox, perhaps it's not. The last thing we want is a good old boy being elected to office over and over just because he has money or name recognition. That's no way to choose a school leader.

South Florida Community College has one of the finest leaders you will find on any campus anywhere. Norman Stephens was not elected to that post. A board chose him in a national search. The payoff is obvious and incalculable.

It wouldn't be fair to suggest a change is needed only because some of our schools perennially score low on state grades for school performance. A lot of factors contribute to those grades that are beyond the power of any superintendent to fix. But there is, no doubt, opportunity to affect change and boost school performance. That's happened in a few schools here, but we believe the grading system is flawed.

Electing superintendents seems like a quaint tradition, but we need to decide if it's the best way to choose leaders of such large institutions. We hope the workshop will shed a lot of light on what's best for our children. That will require preconceived notions to be checked at the door and to do the right thing.

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