Duval County Public Schools has named its two finalists for the Superintendent’s position: Christopher Bernier (Lee County, FL former superintendent who resigned unexpectedly in April–one board member had this to say: Debbie Jordan expressed disappointment that the separation agreement had to be negotiated in two days and without public discussion. “I know we cannot explain what has transpired,” Jordan said. “It’s just hard for me to understand why there is not any kind of conversation on this.”)
Indeed, a mystery surrounds his departure as reported here. But hey, he wants to come to Duval County and let’s make him a finalist without bothering to do the most basic Google search on his name.
At this point, with the way this process has been going, I want to throw shade on the Florida School Boards Association, who is driving the process. If you’ve been watching the meetings, the Duval School Board has pretty much done whatever they said.
The other finalist is Daniel Smith (Loudon County, VA current chief of schools.) He was acting superintendent for a period of time after the Loudon County School Board fired its superintendent for retaliating against an employee. That’s no reflection upon Dr. Smith, of course, but it contributes to the miasma that has hung over the DCPS superintendent search from the beginning.
How did it come to this?
At today’s school board meeting, the members and the FSBA representatives talked about how they have two outstanding finalists to consider. I’m not sure how many would agree. Local journalist Nate Monroe had this to say in a recent Florida Times-Union column:
Florida Politics reporter A.G. Gancarski offered this in a recent opinion piece for Jax Today, a local online publication from WJCT, the local NPR station:
And what’s clear based on the superintendent search thus far is that any candidate who comes in will do so with slight experience, possibly none, in a major district like Duval, with competing forces that include a very activist state commissioner of education.
As both journalists note, a dystopian future of decline hangs over the school district. It cannot get on top of teacher misconduct scandals, its grand rebuilding plan is collapsing, and declining enrollment is going to force the closure of many schools, a fraught process that upsets the community and drives a heated and divisive political process of us vs. them.
If you watched today’s school board meeting that determined the two finalists, you might have observed the lack of enthusiasm about the process. There was a lack of energy on the dais. But at the end, they congratulated themselves on finding these candidates much as King Charles has recently been handing out military honors to his family members who have not earned them.
Is the Duval County School Board as clueless as Britain’s Royal Family, who seem determined not to notice the visible decline?
How has it come to this?
We need answers, not the argle-bargle of spitballing a word salad full of jargon. The FSBA is going to work on questions for each board member to ask next week when the two candidates arrive for interviews. Each member will take an area of focus:
- Charlotte Joyce: Fiscal responsibility and transparency. The other members chuckled with one commenting that they knew this would be her area of focus.
- April Carney: Culture and climate. Oh dear God, why? Sorry, I didn’t mean to inject my bias into this piece.
- Kelly Coker: Highly Effective Educators and Staff. They had to ask her to repeat it, she was one of the worst in not talking into the mike. I’m beginning to wonder if her failure to file for re-election means her heart is no longer in the work and she’s not going to.
- Warren Jones: Duuuuvalll! In other words, he’s going to be the point man in forcing the candidates to address the situation in Duval as opposed to offering palaver about argle-bargle.
- Cindy Pearson: High Quality Partnerships. Yeah, I don’t get it, either.
- Lori Hershey: I really wanted Duuvall! But since it’s taken, Personal Leadership.
- Daryl Willey: Thats leaves me Instructional Leadership and Student Supports.
You can watch the entire meeting here. It ran a little more than an hour. Pro tip: turn on the Closed Captioning. I’ve been kvetching all afternoon about the sound quality but the district has yet to respond.
Dates to keep in mind:
- Monday, May 13, 6 PM – 8 PM. Community Meet and Greet. You get the chance to shake a hand and maybe get an answer to a quick question if the crowds are low. Otherwise, the FSBA is gonna keep the line moving, perhaps toward the “Egress” if you’re up-to-date on your P.T. Barnum.
- Monday, May 13, afternoon. Interviews will take place. I believe this will be at the Schultz Center but I may be mistaken. Full board interviews will take place at 1 PM and as these will constitute a public meeting, anyone interested should be able to attend.
- Monday, May 13, mid-morning. A community focus group will interview the candidates.
As best as I can schuss this out, they don’t fall under the Sunshine Law and the public will not be allowed to attend.I will correct this if in error. The focus group meeting has been publicly noticed so it’s likely that members of the public will be able to attend. - Monday, May 13, morning. The candidates will tour a few schools in Riverside. Yes, I know, I live in Baldwin.
- Thursday, May 23. The school board meets to pick someone. Or maybe not, who knows how things will turn out?