Superintendent Search: Reviewing the Districts

The Rochester Community Schools Board of Education has released the names of candidates selected for the superintendent position.  They are:

Unfortunately, finding out a significant amount of information about a particular candidate and their views without an interview is difficult, so I have chosen to compare the school districts they come from.  Three of them are superintendents, so their views and success should be reflected in the views and success of their districts.  Three are assistant or deputy superintendents and while they hold significant importance for each district, they are not the primary decision maker.

Based on the info from the districts, I would divide the candidates into two groups.  Geraldine Moore of Rochester Community Schools, Paul DeAngelis of Birmingham, and Thomas Harwood of Grosse Pointe all come from medium to large districts with high Great Schools ratings, MEAP scores, MME scores, and ACT College Readiness percents.  Frederick Clarke of Albion, Karl Paulson of Lakeview, and Gary Richards of Imlay City all come from smaller districts that scored low on the indicators cited previously.  The best districts for gifted students appear to be Grosse Pointe and Birmingham in that order, but Mrs. Moore of RCS has been responsive to parents of advanced and gifted students.  I’ve included an Districts Excel Spreadsheet showing the indicators above for each school district and selected information is available at the end of the article.

It is possible that Mr. Clarke, Mr. Paulson, or Mr. Richards could be RCS’s Bo Schembechler, a star rising from a relatively minor school, but I would need to see something significant that made me believe that they would have success as RCS’s superintendent that they did not have in their own school district.  I did not detect an upward trend in their school districts based on test scores.  I presume that School Exec Connect chose them for some reason and hopefully that reason becomes apparent soon.

None of the candidates have International Baccalaureate schools in their district and I would like to know their willingness to put the IB curriculum at some of the Rochester schools.  My other question would be what they believe to be the ideal opportunities for advanced and gifted students and what should be implemented in Rochester Community Schools, a district with limited funds.

We have the interviews coming up.  According to Rochester Patch, two candidates will be interviewed per night on March 14, 16, and 17 beginning at 6 PM.  These will be at the School Administration Center.  I do not believe that there will be public questions or input allowed at these interviews, but it will give us a good idea of what the RCS Board of Education is looking for and we will get to know some of the basics of the six candidates.  The Board will then limit to a few finalists and give the public a chance for questions and input on March 22 & 24 at 7 PM at Stoney Creek High School’s auditorium.  On March 25, RCS plans to announce our new superintendent.

Thank you to David Pruneau for his service and may we find the right superintendent to lead our district onward and upward.

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Data referenced above:
Data continues on the border area due to table width.

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