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"9 times out of 10 they have to fire the person"

That makes me chuckle out loud. Our Board of Education could never muster up the courage to fire anyone. Evidence shows they take what they get and make him out to be a hero even if he's performing less than adequate. They are scared to death to make any decision which is why they waiver and hum-haw over even the slightest of task. We definitely need an outside firm--FAST but I think the July 1 deadline is rushing things. We should have learned by now that rushing into decisions leads to disaster. Remember the Choice Plan? ....Haste makes waste..

This is definitely a job for an outside search firm, and actually $40,000 plus expenses is pretty reasonable, based on the typical 30% of initial salary that executive search firms charge. But given the controversy and the serious need for public input, July is too aggressive a timetable. September or October is more realistic. It would also be good if the new superintendent had to be on the job a good 6 months, and learn about the system and the community, before rushing off and making changes for their own sake, which I believe was one of Dr. Grier's shortcomings. Having said this, there is one major issue about search firms that the Board will have to manage. Search firms are often too willing to suggest candidates who are professional job jumpers, quick to push the latest fad, publish a lot, make lots of changes, and then move on, without doing much good. Does this sound like anyone we know? So I'd suggest a search firm, but specifically not the one that has recruited Dr. Grier twice, and, I would bet, will present another group of candidates just like him. Is the Board up to the task? I have some concerns. And what do I know? I only pay the taxes.

The BOE should seriously consider looking within GCS ranks first. I think we have some good candidates who, with a little help, might make a great superintendent. That search firm money could be used for some significant leadership training at the Center for Creative Leadership for the incoming superintendent. Sometimes the greenest grass is right under your own two feet.

Oh please, if there had been "green grass right under our feet" don't you think it would have sprouted during some of the most chaotic times over the last several years? The fact that no one ever stepped up as looking like a leader within our current admistration tells me that we need a leader ASAP. Our administration and most of the BOE are all followers...and I'm not sure who they are following..it's a mess. Someone please come in as save our schools. I personally don't care if they are from here or Kalamazoo but let's be real, they are NOT here now.

The only enjoyment the new Supt. will have is money and benefits. If he/she wants job satisfaction and the joy of working as team with the BOE, you can forget it. The only plant the BOE has is not plan. They are incapable to telling the new Supt. what their priorities are where to start. They have an extreme view of "site based management" and refused to take the lead in school environment issues. Most of the things people blame Dr. Grier for should be blamed on the BOE. The real job of the BOE is to lead. This is something that they are incapable of doing. They honestly think they are making progress when there is little evidence that that is true. When the Dean of Admissions was asked about our students, she said that other counties were doing better. A B+ student from other counties was much more ready for college work that students from Guilford Co. When will we wake up and do something.

To Get Real,

With all due respect, I disagree with you. We don't know what kind of superintendent a person will be until he/she steps into that position. And we'll never know if we don't give people the opportunity. Yes, there is risk, but there's risk no matter what we do. Let's think outside the box a little bit here.

Parent,

Do you think that GCS is strong enough to take on a trainee as superintendent right now. I do not. If Terry Grier was leaving the district in good working order, and there was a strong team of administrators, principals, and teaching staff to keep the organization running smoothly while the trainee learns, then fine. But, putting a trainee into the lead role in this district at this time, would precipitate a disaster, larger than already exists.

What should have been taking place over the past few years, Terry Grier should have developed a succession plan in conjunction with the board, identifying potential leaders and providing them educational and developmental opportunities. I haven't seen any sort of thing, so it is unlikely that anyone is prepared in-house. After all, when would Terry have had time to mentor and develop someone, he was always gone on consulting and speaking tours. And, the only high profile central office staff added in recent years has been those that failed elsewhere.

Nope, we need to go outside this time. Look what Charlotte did. It appears that they found a jewel in Peter Gorman. We could do the same here, if our board is competent enough to do it right.

Anon,
Anon,

Your arguments are the same ones that are used all the time in organizations that refuse to look within for leadership. That one person who can save the schools is always somewhere else and is always wonderful. It's predictable.

Let's quit doing the same things the same way.
Let's invest in ourselves. Let's start now.

One weakness of many strong leaders is that they do not want other strong leaders around them. Consequently, the organization suffers. Notice the BOE holds very few Board Meetings without the Supt. (I can think of only one) The Supt. does not want the BOE to meet without him being there and controlling the Agenda.

Our kids cannot afford to be used as experiments any longer. Parent, if you have someone in mind that's been lurking around the admin. offices and you think they'd make a great Superintendent, then spill the beans. Who is it? I firmly believe that that person does not exist. You keep insisting it must be an inside person but not on my child's time will we try any more experiments. To mold someone into the position or send them to some training facility to quickly learn the ropes is just the kind of thinking that gets our system further in the hole. Your ascertation the the person is already here among those over on Eugene street, is almost laughable. But this is no laughing matter. We owe it to our students to conduct a search that leaves no stone unturned. If that person turns out to be right here then great, but we can only predict the future by looking at the past and from what I've seen, there is no one run capable of running this large system already here. Sometimes I really think that's the problem. Maybe it's impossible to run a system this big. Possibly several smaller systems is what we need.

The voters had their chance about 12 years ago to keep 3 systems and they were mistaken to vote into one large system. We are too big, too diverse for one answer to work for the whole county. We spends tens of thousands of dollars transporting for magnet school from all over the county. What urban schools need is different than county schools. I would love to see us redivide, or to divide into more distinct districts. I believe many large districts are doing that now, but I dont know the success rate.

If we had a great system running in good order, turning to inside people might make sense. This is not our case. We have been unable to fix our problems. It in-house people know how to do this, why don't they come forward. Dr. Grier was hampered by a BOE that was directionless. The Board often would neither support the Supt. or make him change. We have to have better from the BOE before we can expect much better from a Supt. As of now, the BOE thinks we have all the time in the world to select the Supt. How much worse can it can get before the BOE get's on fire and shows some leadership.

Debora, the success rate cannot be any worse than our failure rate right now. It makes sense that a smaller system is that much less to keep your eye one. When we seriously think about it, how can anybody effectively run 120+ schools? It's insane. I would love to hear the Board of Ed. discuss chopping the system up. They never treat all areas of the county the same anyway. I totally agree that some areas need different things than other areas. What we have is a bunch of mediocre (or worse) schools, with an occasional school that performs well. Once again, I say our kids deserve better. I think at this point it's worth a try. Even if we don't split the system officially, what about splitting the load. Hire two, possibly 3 Supers for the huge salary we're currently paying one, then they could each over-see their own set of schools. Each would then report to the Board. I honestly think it would be easier to find good people willing to take this on. Who in their right mind wants to come work for a system that's a HUGE mess? And I emphasize the huge!

I am glad to see some thinking outside the box.
The first right question is not, "Which search firm do we want to use for a nationwide search and how much is it going to cost?"

Having a search firm will give the BOE an opportunity for cover. Standing out front and taking the heat is not something they like to do. I am concerned at the leisurely pace, it does not look good. The income President of the US staffs the Gov't in about 10 weeks. For us to take 6 to 8 months is riduclous.

Parent,

Please quit parroting that we must look inside, we must look inside. Answer my question, Do you think that this district is strong enough to turn it over to a what would be a trainee? I haven't seen any semblance of a succession plan where leaders have been identified and developed. I have been in organizations that do such planning, and I have seen those that do not. There is not one identifiable candidate that is anywhere near ready to take on that level of responsibility and be successful.

CCL does good work, but it should be viewed as a building course for leaders. You can not just send a candidate to a leadership course and then shove them into the role of a superintendent in a district this size and complex and expect success. A CCL graduate needs some time to take what they learned and utilize it in a lower risk environment. It's not a course where they pour all of the skills into your head and viola to you are a leader.

If there are people that are ready for this challenge, then serve-up their names to the BOE for consideration and evaluation. They can be considered and compared to outside candidates, and if they are the best, then fine, promote them.

So, what is the right first right question in your opinion? And, what are your executive search credentials? what is your interest in hiring from within? Don't we owe it to ourselves to look outside?

This district can not afford to make a mistake with this hire. It has already lost too much ground and credibility. The children of the county deserve better than what they have gotten the past 15 years, and surely better than what they will get, if the wrong choice is made. It's too important now to fail. The stakes are too high, and the job is too big for a trainee, with or without a one-week leadership course.

"We don't know what kind of superintendent a person will be until he/she steps into that position."

Parent, you are exactly right there, and that is why we need to recruit a candidate that has already been proven as a success as a superintendent. Charlotte struck gold in Peter Gorman. He was exactly what we needed. He was a proven quantity in a smaller district, and moving to a district the size of Charlotte was a nice mover up for him. Let's find out Peter Gorman. We can't afford to wait a couple of years to see what kinds okf superintendent our internal candidate might be.

This is a very tough question...

If what you read is true, it sounds like Dr. Grier often told his staff what to think/do. How can we tell what the insiders will be like, once they're allowed to think/act on their own?

I think the BOE has a hard job, too. Many of them say Dr. Grier often told them only what he wanted them to know. How can the BOE really know who the qualified insiders are? Will their decisions be colored by what they've heard from Dr. Grier?

On the other hand, do we want to use the same group that brought the past superintendents here?

Certainly a difficult decision...

As a school community, we are not even stopping for a single millisecond to ask ourselves, "What will work best for us?" Why is everyone hop, skip and jumping to, "Which search firm do we want to use and what is the cost?" Why are we, once again, intent on hiring a "wonderful" candidate with the "remarkable" resume, handing all of our problems to this person, and expecting this person to fix them? Has this model been effective for us in the past?

I assert that this model most school systems use--that is, exchanging high-powered CEO superintendents from one district to the other--is not in our best interest and is not effective for us. We have all seen how this works twice now. Terry Grier is not the only viable leader in GCS. And until we look beyond a "remarkable" superintendent resume and, more importantly, past our ineffective model for long-term leadership, we will never see our leaders in GCS.

I am not so arrogant that I think I have all the right answers. But I do have a lot of questions about the way we have been doing it for all these years And it looks like we are going right back down that same path without a second thought. As a community, we need to talk about this now. We need to ask the right questions now. We need to quit doing the same things the same way..now.

The above post was mine.

Once again a poster alluding to the fact that there is someone qualified to lead this county and that person was possibly stifled by Grier. Pardon me but B.S.!

Anyone that allowed Grier to tell them what to do/think, is not a leader.

All you that are posting, citing the potential of some insider becoming our next Superintended, please give us a name! I don't buy it!

Our kids have been trampled on, bussed, cheated out of new schools, bullied by the administration, our tax dollars swindled into lame projects....Do I need to continue? --and now our Superintended walks out on all of us. If there's some SuperHero leader hiding over on Eugene Street then SHAME on them for not stepping up sooner! I would not support a single current employee to step up to that Superintendent seat!

Parent,

You have yet to provide a name. Who are you thinking of? Who's the person you so adamently believe already exists for this job?

I do not have all the correct answers either but I can assure you of this, our train wreck system is without a conductor. Anyone in their right mind that's on the train would have stepped up to the controls but no one has!

I can't wait to hear who you're thinking of. If you ask me, we should try going it without a Super. Maybe that's the outside-the-box thinking we need. We could be the first system in the country to go Super-less. It couldn't get any worse!

It is difficult to talk about the Supt. position without talking about the BOE. Our BOE makes life for the Supt. very hard. He is given no direction. In cases when they go along with the Supt., for the most part, it is luke warm support. You will never have a great system unless the BOE is more organized and focused that it is today. The size needs to be reduced to 5 or 7. The BOE needs to listen to educations that have accomplished something as well as the citizens. If in doubt on who to go with, you need to go with the expert in the field. Education is a professional domain. If I was having Heart Surgery, I would get my information from experts not from the man/women in the street.

Having worked with Darlene and disagreed with her on occasion I will say this loud and clear, we parents could not have a better advocate for our children, no one on the board comes close to her passion and desire for the best for all kids. Even having disagreed with a few of her positions, had I voted with her I could still sleep well at nights knowing good was done and the community was well represented.

Search Firm:
I felt only one was really strongly qualified…Yes we could have gone in house and we have good talent but there are political storms out here, the same ones that kept good people from shining before keep the clouds over them now. Even the politics are scary as others are trying to manipulate me into a specific firm. Why?

Joe’s comments:
There is some wisdom there, but taking the heat for a great candidate would not phase me, I just do not believe we can get a great candidate without someone who has access to key players.

Garth, will you be endorsing an At-Large Candidate?

I am working with my principal to host a District 3 and at large forum sometime in April. Will post when I know more.

Enough said, you really provided the "bottom line" of the entire discussion...some of your best leaders are no longer employed with GCS, because they had the courage to lead and leave! Check your top performing and nearby districts and you'll find them.

There are few "real leaders" within education and especially in GCS. I can not name one person on the list of senior staff that is qualified and highly capable of leading GCS or any district for that matter. Real leaders do not do was is politically correct, but what is morally right! This is what differentiates us from all of the rest and we are so happy that we made the decision that we did and we will always challenge the "authority" especially when they are behaving unethically and do not hold children in their "best interest". Of course this is hard to do for many, because they fear retaliation, loss of a job, and do not want to go against the grain. There are a lot of robots in GCS and they are programmed for 30 years of this mental and physical abuse. Check a recent movie release, "Invasion" starring Nicole Kidman and you will see clearly what I mean by robotic. Sad, yet true! Trust me, these economic times and "dropout factories" are not going to produce to many more "true leaders" as long as we do not have the courage to lead.

Stating clearly that there is little likelihood of an insider taking over leadership because of the political mess the board is in, I now offer the counterpoint for public understanding only and not for any endorsement of internal or external candidates. I will evaluate all truly on their merit based upon the environment they functioned in. If you understood the oppression in our district, principals and teachers as well as leaders, you would not quickly condemn the internal candidate, we have a couple I would normally seriously consider.

The taint left by current management style and board passivity leaves me questioning whether they were active participants in this oppression and suppression or were truly part of the oppressed. In my book a person whose livelihood is threatened by word of mouth recommendations within the community in which they operate, ie the national educational community which is very tight, face blacklisting by their superiors. This type of oppression is real and debilitating and therefore does stifle qualified people. I doubt even the best would or should break out from this pack.

What Garth? I seriously have trouble understanding your posts sometimes. So, yes or no, will you at some point offer an endorsement of the At-Large Candidate? I suppose that Dot will be endorsing one publicly. Your constituents would appreciate your candor. I have no idea what you were trying to say above. Maybe I'm just not awake this morning but I don't know what your point was.

Dots gone,

Cant you read?

According to the News& Record this morning, Walter Childs strongly felt that offering Colfax Elementary as an opt-out for Triangle Lake was wrong. He didn't think it was right to bus the kids that far away from their homes. He said that they needed to stay in their communities.

What a hypocrite!

Just last year he was in favor of busing kids out of his district's schools (Andrews and Welborn).

Here are some folks hired by our board of education and superintentent:

Mack McCary--see article below (http://www.smokymountainnews.com/issues/11_03/11_19_03/fr_superintendent_packing.html)

The Jackson County School Board fired Superintendent Claud Earl "Mack� McCary"s Nov. 14 and appointed Assistant Superintendent Sue Nation to fill in as interim superintendent.

The school board bought out McCary's contract at a cost of $141,326, which includes salary and employment taxes for his remaining 14.5 months, said Finance/Budget and Personnel Director David Steinbicker. The board is required by law to pay the funds in a lump sum unless otherwise negotiated by McCary. McCary was hired in early 2001.

A press release from the school board cites "an increasing lack of decision-making" by McCary. It also says that "in numerous instances, he has failed to follow the direction and instruction of the Board of Education."

The release also states that there have been "numerous" reports of a lack of rapport between McCary and students' parents and that due to low morale, "numerous" personnel "have retired or resigned their positions to go elsewhere."

School system workers were not able to say how many employees had left as a result of McCary and his policies, but at the end of the 2002-2003 school year the system had a high rate of teacher turnover and 52 vacancies, Steinbicker said.

However, the board's biggest issue might have been the amount of meetings devoted to developing plans for the school system. McCary has caused teachers to spend "more and more time"in meetings rather than in the classroom and has spent "an excessive amount of time" in meetings himself that were not directly related to the Jackson County system, the release states.

We also have Eric Becoats. Below is an excerpt from the Charlotte Business Journal.
(http://charlotte.bizjournals.com/charlotte/stories/2006/04/03/editorial1.html?jst=pn_pn_lk)

Terry Grier, Guilford County's superintendent since 2000, is a classic education insider. His r�sum� notes he's a frequent speaker at educational conferences. His top assistant is former CMS administrator Eric Becoats, who left under fire in 2003 for allegedly spending too much time on outside consulting.
_____________________________

Please, no GCS insiders. We can do better than the choices Terry Grier made!!!

I didn't realize until reading it late this week that the search firm that recruited Grier AWAY from GCS to San Diego is also the same one that recruited him TO GCS in the first place. And that we're considering them for the new search? Is that really true? So our county paid them a hefty commission to get Grier originally and now because of the same recruiting firm, we're going to have to spend anther $40K to find his replacement? Not that I'm not grateful but have we asked this firm for a refund on the original commission? Or perhaps they should conduct the search to replace Grier for free rather than asking for yet ANOTHER $40K from our county. That's the minimum I'd ask for if a search firm did that to my company. Then I'd make sure we never, never used them again. I can't believe executive search ethics would be so different in education.

And this same firm probably will find our next superintendent another job in 3-7 years. That's the way the superintendent merry-go-round works.