Price is Right

FCPS Board Chair John Price added his own name to the list of employees and parents who will pick Fayette County's next superintendent.

As Jim Warren points out, he is the only board member with specific superintendent search experience, and adds a male perspective to the group.

The board also ratified the election of the other members of the superintendent screening committee yesterday.

This from H-L:

The Fayette County Board of Education gave final approval Monday night of a superintendent screening committee, but the six-member panel won't have any work to do for a while...

The school board has requested proposals from search firms that might help in recruiting candidates for superintendent. Proposals are expected this month, and it isn't clear when the board will advertise for superintendent candidates.

Once applications are in hand, the screening committee will review them and suggest a list of finalists to the full school board.

The board wants to name a successor for outgoing Superintendent Stu Silberman by July 1.

Fayette superintendent search will be open, not replicate past mistakes, board chair said

This from Jim Warren at the Herald-Leader:

Fayette County School Board Chairman John Price says the board intends to conduct an open and transparent superintendent search, with community involvement, while avoiding the kind of glitches that plagued some previous searches.

Past problems included rapid turnover, with two superintendents and two interims in the five years before Stu Silberman was hired; superintendent search firms that didn't do their homework, and conflicts between openness and confidentiality.

The board, now gearing up its search to replace Silberman, is reviewing some earlier searches, hoping to use things that worked well...

"We'd like the process to be as smooth as possible and as transparent as possible," Price said. "It's very important that the community be involved because the community has to have a relationship with the superintendent and the superintendent has to have a relationship with the community. If it's a good relationship, we can move forward." ...

"We need to get absolutely the best person we can," Price said. "The district is large and attractive enough that I think we'll have candidates from across the country, as we have in the past."

A few in-state names have been mentioned in education circles as possible candidates, including Jessamine County Superintendent Lu Young and Daviess County Superintendent Tom Shelton, whom Silberman mentored when he was
Daviess superintendent before coming to Lexington. ...

Clark County Superintendent and former Deputy Commissioner Elaine Farris's name has also been mentioned along with that of Tim Hanner from Kenton County.

Let the Search Begin

Attention: Roger, Elaine, Lu, Tim, Tom, Carmen...

To have a new superintendent recruited, vetted, hired and ready to serve by July is going to require much of the Fayette County School Board and its Chairman John Price. The work begins tomorrow.

This from Jim Warren at the Herald-Leader:

Stu Silberman, who has been superintendent of the Fayette County Public Schools since 2004, announced Tuesday he will step down effective Sept. 1.

The Fayette County Board of Education has scheduled a meeting at 4 p.m. Thursday to discuss the search for a new superintendent. Board members are required by law to name a screening committee to review superintendent applicants. The board also has the option of hiring an outside search firm to find applicants.

Board chairman John Price said Tuesday he wants to have the screening committee in place within 30 days. He hopes a new superintendent can be on board by July 1, so the person can have a few days working with Silberman before he leaves. Silberman's last work days will be in July, district officials said...

...Silberman's retirement and the Jefferson County School Board's recent decision not to renew Superintendent Sheldon Berman's contract means Kentucky's two largest school districts are looking for superintendents. But Brad Hughes, a spokesman for the Kentucky School Boards Association, said that shouldn't hinder Fayette County in its recruiting efforts.

Under state law, the board's screening committee must be composed of two teachers; a board member; a principal; a parent and one classified district employee. The committee could review applicants and submit a list of finalists to the school board, although board members are not required to appoint someone from that list.

The board might consider procedures that were used when Silberman was hired in 2004, Price said. Back then, the district held public forums at which residents could question finalists.

"We want the maximum amount of community input," Price said.

Elsewhere in the article, Warren referred to Stu's rough patches where I was asked to weigh in.

...Silberman also had some rough patches, including the controversial 2007 resignation of Booker T. Washington Academy Principal Peggy Petrilli. An in-house district report accused Petrilli of testing improprieties, but the state Department of Education later said it couldn't find enough evidence to support that. Petrilli sued the school district, claiming she was forced out, but a jury ultimately rejected the claim. She has asked for a new trial.

Silberman also drew fire last year over the school board's 4-1 vote to outsource its legal services. Board member Amanda Ferguson sharply opposed the plan. Richard Day — an education blog moderator and former Fayette elementary school principal — later suggested that outsourcing was a disguised plan by Silberman to get rid of the board's in-house attorney, Brenda Allen. The board signed a $200,000 settlement with Allen in August.

On Tuesday, Day said Silberman had "come down a little heavy" on some other personnel matters over the years, but gave him a "95 percent good" rating.

"You can't address today's challenges while trying to make everybody happy," Day said. "We can say he should have done this or that ... but in the end he's shown himself to be a strong superintendent who was not afraid to lead."