To Find a Superintendent. But first some music to set the theme:

We in Jacksonville are looking for a new Superintendent to lead our schools as are many other school districts in Florida. The school board has contracted with the Florida School Board Association to lead a process of developing a profile of the type of superintendent wanted by the community, helping them process the input and develop a job description, and lead a search for candidates. At the conclusion of the process, the school board will decide upon persons to interview on the way to making a hiring decision and extending an offer.

Today was the beginning of that process with the first meeting to which community members, including parents, were invited. It was not well attended, most likely due to the rural location (more cows than people) and the timing for a midday session. But it’s a start.

After an explanation and rundown of the timeline for this process up to the moment the board anticipates making a decision, the board member for the area read a short statement about the purpose during which she emphasized more than once that she would leave the room once she finished so the attendees would feel free to express their ideas.

My purpose in attending was to bring a teacher’s viewpoint to the discussion of what was needed in a new superintendent. One of the most significant stakeholder groups (sorry for the jargon,) teachers are often left out as the district attempts to make a showing of wanting to hear from the community and parents.

As participants, we were asked to answer three questions. Unlike the online survey, which you can answer here, that only gives you preformulated options to choose from, the community meeting allowed open-ended responses. … at least that’s what I remembered. A quick review of the online survey shows that it begins with some preliminary questions as I’ve described before allowing open-ended responses to two of the three open-ended questions: the strengths of the district and the challenges of the district. The online survey does not give an opportunity to provide feedback about the qualifications required.

Question 1: List the strengths and those areas of Duval County Schools that the next superintendent will need to understand and continue to support.

There were many answers. I focused on two: that our school system has diversity and inclusiveness for all students. Every child is welcome in our schools and has a place. Second, that our school system has talented and hardworking teachers.

Question 2: What are the most critical needs and challenges of Duval County Schools that the next superintendent will need to understand and address.

Lots of answers rolled in for this one. This meeting was also held online for people to join remotely. I don’t know how many did, but enough for lots of answers. As a sidebar, this was made possible by the facilitators having someone dedicated to managing the online part, gathering that input, and relaying it to the room via an audio link. It worked unlike a few years ago when school systems tried to make teachers do the same jobs alone in response to having in-person and remote learning options during the pandemic. To Duval County’s credit, they abandoned that idea over the summer.

Issues raised:

• School police being subject to the superintendent’s authority. People thought that they should report to an outside law enforcement agency.
• Need for a variety of programming in all schools, not only the magnet schools. Of particular focus was a desire for CTE or vocational training for students whose path did not lead to college.
• School autonomy to make the decisions that work best for each school versus micromanagement from the district. (That was one of mine.)
• Too much screen time in classrooms that sucks the joy out of learning and leads to discipline issues. (That was also mine.)
• Retention of teachers and pay issues.
• Condition of building facilities. This one surprised me given the half-penny sales tax and the plans for complete rebuilds or renovations of all schools. Perhaps people felt it wasn’t going fast enough or their school wasn’t high enough on the priority list.
• Services needed in neighborhoods with economic/social needs and problems.

There were more, but those are the ones I remember.

Question 3: What personal qualities, professional experience, and other skills should the Board look for in the next superintendent?

This is the one that’s not in the survey. I had no response for this. Over the course of a long career, I have had success in many things in many places. But hiring is not one of them. Nevertheless, at the end of the session, when we had three blue dots to put on the charts to mark the most important qualities, I chose professional educator, apolitical (as in not being political, this one took the facilitator a few moments to understand the response was not a political,) and involved in community.

Then, as we went to leave, the media descended. What I remember as I type this up is that they wanted to know if we felt that we were heard. I said yes, I believed I was heard. Whether that would be true at the next step as the charted responses were shared with the board–I had no idea.

Did I have faith in the board? I said I was optimistic at this point that the board wanted to find the best person for the job and was interested in what the community thought. A fellow participant was a little more reluctant about that.

But I will not prejudge this board or its members despite some of the shenanigans they have indulged as the culture wars wash into their meetings. I will give them the benefit of the doubt until they take that away.

There are more community meetings planned. I highly encourage everyone with a stake in Duval County Public Schools (Jacksonville, FL) to attend one of them.