by
Al Fondy1
Often in a democracy, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. At virtually no point in the preparation phase for the transition from Director of Schools Bill Wise to the new unknown Director could actual villainy be observed. Yet the dynamic set in place led to an institutionalized tolerance of injustice for a number of years following.
The board decided almost a year before the change, to hire the Cascade Consulting Group to search for the nominees for the Director position. Lee Pasquarella, the "head hunter" gave quality presentations to the board and convinced the public that all "stakeholders" would have input to the decision. Starting in January, a number of meetings was held. But it quickly became apparent that the meetings were pro forma. Large groups of interested people were brought together; large papers plastered the walls of the board room with all kinds of qualities the citizens were seeking. In reality, no one--especially not a group of nine elected board members--could reconcile all those good sounding qualities.
More specifically, Pasquarella had "training sessions" for the board members themselves. One such session, led by the Superintendent of Schools of Charleston SC, Jerita Postelwright, was designed to convince the board of their duty to behave themselves. Specifically, board members should not show a divided face to the community. They should set policy and then let the Director of Schools do all the work. It was not clear at that point, how the board might control the quality of the work done, but they were indoctrinated into the concept of avoiding micromanagement.
Informally, Kathy Nevill showed herself to be prejudiced toward teachers for the first time. She referred to "deadwood" and spoke of ways to make the older teachers uncomfortable. Specifically, rearrange their work situation: grade level changes, and movement to different parts of the building. No other board member seemed sympathetic at that point to such hostility. It was also at this meeting that she said teachers were too highly paid. When teachers got a raise, she said, she had to pay her college graduate accountants more in her own business. She was an expansive mood that day, admitting that she drank no less than 10 cups of coffee every day to the astonishment of all.
Postelwright's agenda purpose appeared to be successful. If the board was divided, she claimed, then the pressure groups in the community would play on the divisions. With such conflict, no Director would want to come to Nashville, and furthermore, if a Director were run off, no good Director would want to be his replacement. This sounded all sensible enough to the relatively new board members. For the first time in Metro's history, a majority of the board was female. The men were quite worried, after seeing an altercation between George Blue and Chris Norris, that this majority might turn on them. So they bought into the good behavior model, with no one ever speaking in tones of an advocate except Nevill.
As they moved forward toward the interview stage, they well knew that it was like a marriage. They could say "yes" or "no" to the new Director, but he or she could also say "yes" or "no" to them. The majority was convinced that they must put on the "best face" so as to attract the best candidates.
From the standpoint of another school board, NEA Affiliate, or interested citizen group, what could be done differently? No one can advocate strife between board members. Everyone gives lip service to the "no micromanagement" concept. The political science theory of the board members making policy and the Director of Schools carrying out the policy is also well established in our constitutional background. Finally, no one at that stage of the process can assume that the new CEO will deliberately do wrong things and will need some method of correction by board or community. So it was with high optimism that school board and community alike moved toward a decision.
1nom de plume