Fast changes in district administration get second look, lose two votes but go on
Superintendent Jeffrey Young can seem impatient with the School Committee, as in debate Tuesday about administrative changes it approved last month. (Photo: Rachel Offerdahl)
Second thoughts about a sudden restructuring of district administration hit School Committee members this week, but their discussion and 5-2 vote Tuesday didn’t undo the changes they approved unanimously Sept. 18.
In the vote last month, committee members talked for about an hour before approving Superintendent Jeffrey Young’s request to replace “executive director” positions with three assistant superintendents — for elementary education; curriculum and instruction; and student services — and have them overseen by Carolyn L. Turk, the district’s deputy superintendent for teaching and learning.
Tuesday brought about 40 minutes of reconsideration, sparked by member Richard Harding thinking the changes and new salary structure could have been approved as part of annual budgeting.
“I do think the budget process would have given us a lot more time to talk about this, really have some substantive conversation about where we want to go as a district and allow the public time to chime in through public comment, and I feel that’s a very important thing,” Harding said.
“I’m actually glad it was reconsidered simply because of the order of magnitude of this kind of change,” said Patty Nolan, the committee member joining Harding in voting against the pace of the restructuring this time, despite approving of some of the changes Young proposed and the committee made. “I’m interested to hear from my colleagues whether it is better to over the next couple of months take a step back and think about the entire reorganization, which I certainly support.”
Taking up the issue at the next regular meeting — Nov. 20 — was proposed until committee member Alice Turkel questioned how that would actually add anything to the process, but a delay of months was spotted immediately as counter to the whole point of Young’s restructuring, including the new titles and pay scale: to get the best people for the jobs. Turkel, who “didn’t want to add obstacles,” also looked briefly at letting one position be hired and holding on the others for a larger, longer restructuring process, but the idea wasn’t picked up for debate.
Suggested and dropped
With committee members recognizing they’d already passed the recommendations, even Harding said he didn’t want to hold things up, and Turkel’s suggestion wasn’t the only one that didn’t get further examination. Nolan wondered without answer why Maryann MacDonald, until recently executive director of student achievement, was made assistant superintendent for elementary education instead of for curriculum and instruction, which included a role in the data handling for which MacDonald has drawn lavish praise.
Administrators are usually hired in January or February so they can give ample warning to their current schools, Young said. Pushing the hiring process to April would mean choosing from weaker candidates, while the district’s executive director for human resources, Barbara J. Allen, said the hiring process was set to begin the next day with input from special-education constituencies. “Hiring in April would in my opinion be a mistake,” Young said, calling a delay “foolhardy.”
Young also pointed out that the restructuring could have been entirely in his hands and outside committee oversight save for one thing: The “assistant superintendent” titles meant to lure top candidates who would prefer that to being an “executive director.”
“Were I to have said ‘Forget the title, we’re going to keep these positions as executive directors,’ we wouldn’t be here tonight — we’d be here, but we wouldn’t be talking about this,” Young said. “One of the things that I’ll need to consider at this point is whether I’m just going to withdraw this entirely, keep the old titles, risk not getting the best person that we want and do it myself.”
The committee’s vote shortly afterward made that unnecessary.
The superintendent often comes across as impatient with the committee, and in this case he seemed to articulate why while explaining how the new structure improved on the old and whether there was an advantage in him evaluating the district’s principals and deans directly, instead of contributing to an evaluation done officially one administrative level beneath him.
“As probably you can tell, I don’t much like being micromanaged,” Young said, “and therefore I don’t micromanage others. I do try to steer, guide, lead, support, critique, hold accountable and assess.”
I would expect that a School Committee, in any district, would want to support, as often as possible, a superintendent’s recommendations for how to organize the administration and whom to place in key positions.
I would also, though, expect members of a School Committee to want to have a thorough understanding of a superintendent’s recommendations and top staffing choices, both because it is their legal obligation at the assistant superintendent level and higher, and because it is their civic responsibility as elected officials to explain to the community that elects them the important decisions they are making about the public schools. It’s also a perfect opportunity to build trust and confidence in them and the public schools, and to publicize what they presumably view as good decisions that will lead to good outcomes.
I would also expect a superintendent, in any district, to want to explain these decisions thoroughly in order to build a relationship of mutual respect with the School Committee and the community that elects the School Committee.
It seems that, for some reason, neither the Cambridge School Committee or CPS superintendent felt it was necessary to bring the public along on this set of organizational and staffing decisions, even though these are positions important enough to merit the title “Assistant Superintendent.” It is because they are so important that the law requires School Committee approval under the system of local control of schools; because no superintendent is expected to always be in perfect synch with the will of a community. Otherwise a School Committee could just hire a superintendent and disband, or offer advice but take no binding votes.
Perhaps, though, CPS School Committee members have a plan for explaining this important policy decision related to curriculum; the K-5, Ola, and Amigos schools/programs; and special education so everyone can join them in looking forward to the positive outcomes they anticipate.
To answer Emily’s concerns, the School Committee was informed of the restructuring on the Thursday before our last September meeting. As pointed out in the article, we then discussed the proposal on the following Tuesday (the next meeting) for an hour. It was then reconsidered at the first October meeting which led to 40 more minutes of discussion. Now, as my colleagues pointed out, it would have been preferable to have heard about this recommendation with more than the initial 5 days notice, but that didn’t happen, so we could have delayed the process longer losing valuable recruitment time or moved forward with the Supt’s recommendation. Also, I and others asked the Supt many times to explain why he thought this restructuring was necessary and he explained his reasoning each time, so I’m not sure why Emily is saying it wasn’t explained.
Marc McGovern
School Committee
Thank you Marc for your reply. My concerns about not bringing the public along were not only mine. They were voiced in both meetings by members of the Committee itself, two of whom voted against this motion. As several Committee members pointed out during the discussion, the Committee was not fully included as partners in the process of reorganizing the upper level administrative jobs, or in the separate decision about how to fill those positions through searches or promotions. Some questions were asked and answered, some were asked and not answered, and some were not even asked. It’s not a matter of what the proposal was, it’s about how important it is to explain major decisions comprehensively so as to fully acknowledge and engage families and other city residents in a discussion about their public schools. If the reason for your “yes” vote is just that you had to because of timing, that doesn’t inspire much confidence. The most important thing now, though, is for everyone to work together to eliminate the pernicious gaps in school attendance and achievement that contribute to intolerable disparities in life options for students graduating from CPS schools.
Emily,
I agree that we should have been notified earlier. I believe I said that. The reason for my “yes” vote, was in part, because a delay would not be in the best interest of the District and I trust our Director of Human Resources and Supt when they say that. The other reason for voting “yes” was because it makes sense. Streamlining responsibilities under our new structure, particularly at a time when positions are vacant, makes sense.
Marc McGovern
School Committee