Nick Jimenez

Can we find a miracle worker?

Somewhere there's a person, more than likely an educator but perhaps not, with a strong personality, a sense of mission and scrupulous ethics, a person who can inspire some and tell others where to get off, who knows what kids need and can understand what the public wants.
   That person should be the next superintendent of the Corpus Christi Independent School District. Perhaps that person is among the batch of applications that the board of trustees will go through on Monday.
   The next person who sits in the superintendent's chair will have quite a challenge. The district is still trying to recover from the maelstrom that engulfed it for more than a year: the acid-bitter board division that became apparent after former Superintendent Abe Saavedra received a whopping raise, the racial animosity and personal vendettas that poisoned the effectiveness of the board, then the investigations into loose financial accountability on the part of the board and Saavedra. The indictment, the trial and acquittal of Saavedra, followed by his plea on a misdemeanor, ended a firestorm of an episode that pretty well exhausted the district's political energies.
   Putting this Humpty-Dumpty back together again will take a lot of king's men. Or maybe just one strong, self-assured person with a sure sense of where this district ought to go.
   Nobody asked me, but I think the next superintendent ought to "edit with his hat on his head." That's an old newspaper saying, meaning that the chief honcho ought to be so wedded to bedrock principles that he (or she) should be ready to lay down a resignation letter rather than compromise them.
   In CCISD's case, that means that the next superintendent should tell the board trustees loud and clear what their job is and what it isn't - and that any breaching of that line means they will have to start the superintendent search again.
   Being a school-board member is no easy gig. The low pay is only matched by the high expectation from parents that board members can manipulate everything. They can't and shouldn't. Their role is to be sure that there are reasonable policies in place and that those policies are followed fairly, and to set goals of performance for the staff, most specifically the superintendent. And then they're supposed to get out of the way.
   To drive home the divide between policy making and managing, the superintendent's chair should be moved from the board table, just as the city manager sits apart from the council.
   The next superintendent should insist on the utmost transparency in how the district is managed and governed. That means that those post-board meeting get-togethers that caused so much ruckus should be eliminated altogether. The district's lawyer, J.W. Gary, said the meetings didn't violate the Open Meetings statutes, but why even put yourself into a situation where the question might be raised?
   The next superintendent must be fastidious about keeping board matters on the record and out front for the public to view. To that end, the number of closed-door meetings should be curtailed.
   It's also time, past time, for the CCISD board meetings to be broadcast on public access television, from gavel to gavel. Let the public see how decisions are made and put both superintendent and board on the record for what they say and how they say it.
   The next superintendent ought to be very visible, representing public education at every public forum possible. The superintendent's office of the city's biggest district should be recognized for what it is: the chief educator of the city's next generation of workers. That person ought to be included in every mission to attract potential employers, such as the most recent one to Singapore.
   The next superintendent should be an expert on education. But as we now know, sometimes the biggest challenges a superintendent must deal with are not in education, but in personal judgment.
  

 
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