Fred Skillern

In Hamilton County, school board members are elected, who then appoint the superintendent to manage the school district. But there is some support to change the process.

The Hamilton County Board of Education recently affirmed the idea of appointed superintendents, approving a resolution encouraging the Tennessee General Assembly to reject attempts to revert to elections.

The resolution passed by an 8-1 vote at the school board’s December meeting.

“I do not want it stated or implied that my name is on this in any way,” said school board member Rhonda Thurman, who cast the lone vote against the resolution.

Ms. Thurman said the citizens entrusted to vote for other public officials such as county and city mayors should also be allowed to decide who will lead their school system. If the election process stays the way it is, Ms. Thurman said it makes sense that the County Commission and the City Council appoint the mayors.

But Superintendent Jim Scales, who led the Dallas (Texas) Independent School District before coming to Hamilton County, said appointing superintendents allows the county to bring in a higher caliber of school leaders.

“No one from out of town can come in and win a local election, it’s prohibitive,” he said. “You are going to attract a wider field of candidates for the position if it’s advertised and you have (a search firm) to recruit talent for you.”

In Davidson County, for example, the metro Nashville school board recently selected former Hamilton County school superintendent Jesse Register to lead the Davidson County school system.

State Sen. Dewayne Bunch, R-Cleveland, recently told Bradley County educators that if a bill to elect school superintendents ever gets out of committee, it will pass the Tennessee Legislature.

“It’s hard to look citizens in the eye and say, ‘You are smart enough to elect me and not smart enough to elect him,’” Sen. Bunch said at a meeting with Cleveland and Bradley County school board members to talk about the Tennessee School Boards Association’s 2009 legislative agenda.

The TSBA supports appointed directors and opposes elected superintendents. The state switched to appointment in 1992, but supporters of elected superintendents keep the issue alive in Nashville.

In Bradley County the school board earlier this month reaffirmed its stand in favor of appointed directors. The Cleveland, Tenn., school board is expected to take a similar vote in January.

But electing a superintendent makes that person accountable to the entire county not just the nine school board members, argued County Commission Chairman Jim Coppinger.

“I’m always more comfortable when people are making the decisions about who is representing them,” he said. “The citizens generally get it right.”

When it comes to the school board, Commissioner Warren Mackey said he believes each commissioner should appoint the school board member to represent their particular district.

“There would be a lot more consensus between the two bodies. As it is right now, there’s a disconnect,” he said. “Perhaps if the commission had more authority over the school board, then that accountability that the taxpayer wants could be applied even more so.”

The school board needs to work closely with the County Commission, said school board Chairman Kenny Smith, but should remain an independent body.

“If each commissioner picked their school board member, I don’t see a great need for the school board,” he said. “A board member’s thinking is a lot more independent because we’re not appointed.”

Commissioner Fred Skillern, who has been both appointed and elected to the local school board in the past, said whether superintendents and school boards are appointed or elected, it should be uniform.

It would be hard to take away citizens’ right to vote for their school board members, he said, so perhaps superintendents should be elected again. That way, the elected leader would have a majority of citizen’s support “for one day of his life,” he said.

“I don’t think it ought to be a mixed bag,” he said. “If one is elected they both should be, or if one is appointed, they should both be.”

Staff writer Randall Higgins contributed to this report.