Well, that didn't take long. As we speculated last week, Hamilton County Board of Education members will vote on Nov. 17 whether to make interim superintendent Kirk Kelly the school district's next superintendent.
Wide speculation also has it that should Kelly be voted superintendent for two years, he would retire after two years, having served in the system for well over 30 years. At that point, school board members could easily make a motion to nominate Jill Levine, the former Normal Park Museum Magnet principal Kelly named as the district's chief academic officer, as the next superintendent.
Given the well-documented challenges our schools face, this development is discouraging. We believe a proven change agent in the system's top job is required now. Kelly and Levine have made positive moves since moving into their positions last spring, but we believe the problems are deeper than they - and the district - are prepared to tackle urgently. The intense protectionism in central office employment and the need for out-of-the-box thinking require new leadership and someone willing to make unpopular decisions.
At this point, if Kelly gets the same five votes as superintendent as he did as interim superintendent, he will have the job. Kathy Lennon, who first proposed hiring Kelly last week, and former school district employees David Testerman and Joe Galloway are certain to vote for him. In the spring, Kelly also got the votes of former Hamilton County Schools educator Steve Highlander and Karitsa Mosley Jones for the interim post. However, Highlander is now school board chairman, so he undoubtedly will have pressure from the public, which made its desire for new leadership known in the spring, to vote differently.
Kelly proponents undoubtedly will argue that keeping a member of the current administration will save the board about $60,000 it agreed to pay Coleman Lew and Associates for the superintendent search.
At the very least, we believe if five board members think the longtime central office staffer is the right man, he should be held up for scrutiny against other candidates. If they believe he is still the correct pick, they can feel they have done their due diligence in pitting him against the field.
Simply naming Kelly to the top post excludes the community input and transparency some board members have promised, including Lennon.
We are afraid if new leadership is not sought, either through the search firm or other means, the momentum for public schools reform that grew over this past year with the Chattanooga 2.0 movement will falter.
If business leaders, parents and others who pay taxes for our schools believe the school board is taking the path of least resistance or that the fix is in for the consummate insider, we are afraid they will throw up their hands and conclude Hamilton County Schools will never be able to make the wholesale changes needed to propel this community forward. Who can blame them?