Friday, February 27, 2009

School board selection for superintendent gets approval of some critics of other recent decisions

The Fayettevillage Voice gives school board an A for choice of woman who graduated from the University of Arkansas as superintendent.
I didn't attend the meetings, so I can't comment on the person selected, but I am happy to see that a failed football coach isn't getting the job. That was the kind of foolishness that made school administrators a joke decades ago.
I agree that being the best person for the job doesn't necessarily require being the person with the highest degree available in education.
However, I would hope that, if contract negotiating has to do with pay, it would be the candidate offering to work at a reasonable amount. I believe that a good administrator would consider the position a seven-day-a-week job. That does mean working a lot more than 40 hours a week. But, even so, it doesn't mean that a person really qualified and really enthusiastic for the job would require more than double the pay of the district's best educated and most experienced teachers.

The Morning News reports that UA graduate offered job of superintendent of Fayetteville schools

Northwest Arkansas Times reports that board votes to negotiate purchase of land to replace Happy Hollow School
Happy Hollow School is less than 40 years old. Let's demand that a replacement school be built to last at least a century, with the possibilities of the need for later additions and changes accounted for.
It should be first a sturdy building where kids can be safe in a tornado with alternative power sources and windows that open in spring and fall to ventilate naturally and with a heating system that will operate adequately during a power outage and the most efficient possible use of gas and water and elecricity.
Build it as though we will be paying the utilities. Because we and our chidlren will be paying and our grandchildren will be educated in it. Guess that means I just said build only a truly sustainable school facility. That applies to the new high school as well.
I live downstream from the high school. And I really want to see that construction methods take into account the potential further degradation of the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River. We don't need another Aspen Ridge fiasco up the hill!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You said "approval of some critics of past decisions" quite rightly. Plenty of people will wait to decide about this choice.