It's come down to this. Next Thursday, Hamilton County Board of Education members are expected to give an up-or-down vote on interim Superintendent Dr. Kirk Kelly. It may not look that cut and dried, but it is.
With the vote of three board members who are longtime Hamilton County educators and two members who have spoken glowingly of the longtime central office employee, he could have the permanent job.
Last fall, when a vote to make Kelly the permanent superintendent was ruled out of order, the board voted to spend $60,000 for a search firm to find candidates for the superintendent job. Of those original candidates, there are five left.
The interim superintendent is a known quantity to the board and public. Board members and community members either believe someone who has been in the current administration for nearly two decades deserves to be elected, or they believe he does not. They prefer the status quo - that the district, more or less, is making the progress it needs - or they do not.
For those who do not, four candidates interviewed with the board, with stakeholders and with the public this week. Here are a few takeaways from those interviews:
- All of them believe art is important in the schools. None of them had real solutions on how more art instruction would be accomplished.
- All of them who were asked believe the student voice is important in decision-making.
- All of them say in most cases inclusion and the least restrictive environment are the right place for special needs students.
- All of them who were asked say parent engagement is vital.
- All of them say local philanthropy can be helpful.
- All of them who were asked believe broad options involving online technology and classes should be considered.
- All of them believe parent universities (schools with wraparound services for family members) have worth.
- All of them who were asked said they would talk to the communities who have expressed an interest in leaving the system and ask them what they feel they are missing.
If they had answered any of the above questions differently, they would have been quickly crossed off board members' lists.
The questions most often asked of each candidate - and asked in several different ways - were:
- How they would achieve equity in the schools (though the questioners didn't state what that would look like).
- What the candidates' feelings about the state's partnership school district for its lowest performing schools were (they mostly didn't like it - a bad sign).
- How the candidates would navigate the political climate with Hamilton County commissioners in advocating for more money (open conversations, share the good and the bad, have a plan).
- How they would retain good teachers (recruit better, pay more, acknowledge and respect them, allow them input).
We found the following comments particularly refreshing.
- Dr. Timothy Gadson said the school board and administration should be honest with the media.
- Dr. Bryan Johnson said the district must look at each program and determine if it's being used because it feels good or because it's getting results and that it is academic malpractice to work without accountability measures.
- Dr. Wayne Johnson said the local philanthropic community needs to be given reasons they should trust the county Department of Education with its money.
- Stuart Greenberg said providing wraparound services for parents wasn't the sole responsibility of schools - that it also involved the community. We're relieved he didn't say it was the sole responsibility of government.
- Dr. Bryan Johnson said students will always help you get where you need to go. Indeed, he said, his 15-year-old always tells him where to go.
- Dr. Wayne Johnson said distrust of the school board by the county commission exists because of reality. The board, he said, needs to take away excuses and show positive momentum.
- Dr. Gadson said he couldn't worry about hate - that it's his job to do what's best for the organization.
And there were these answers:
- Only one candidate, Dr. Wayne Johnson, was asked if he would support a tax increase for schools. He would.
- To the delight of no one in the district office, none of the four said charter schools and vouchers were the devil. Their answers ranged from Dr. Wayne Johnson's comment that vouchers were inevitable to Dr. Bryan Johnson's comment that the district should make it harder for charters and vouchers to be desired.
- Dr. Wayne Johnson said if his plan to reform the iZone schools doesn't work, the district would be no worse off. In fact, it would be worse off - one or two or however many years it took to implement the plan worse off.
Each of the four candidates has strengths and weaknesses. For us, none of them had the experience in turning around a school system we believe Hamilton County needs. But the choice has come down to a nice and gentle man in Kelly, who has been a part of the current system for many years but only became an assistant superintendent in 2015, or one of four others who offer a potential infusion of new ideas.
We hope school board members will choose carefully and be mindful of the 43,000 students whose lives are involved.