From Grover Robinson:
The bad thing about being a former elected official is people approach you with community problems hoping you might fix them. The good thing about being a former elected official is that you get to tell them you are no longer in public office, and they need to talk to someone elected to handle that problem. However, when those issues are related to the education of our children, we all need to find ways to work together for a solution.
I do not pretend to know all the details leading to Dr. Tim Smith’s dismissal as Superintendent. However, I do know both Dr. Smith and the five Escambia School Board members. While I fully realize that some School Board members lost confidence in Dr. Smith, I had the opportunity to successfully work with Dr. Smith on several programs that enhance student learning and participation, like the Pensacola Youth Council, the Pensacola Summer Intern program, and Parent University. His heart was certainly in supporting student achievement.
Just because Dr. Smith may not have been the right person for the Board does not mean the concept people voted for is wrong. I think Dr. Smith was doomed from the start by the original selection process. With that said, I don’t blame the School Board members; they had never gone through the Superintendent selection process before. My father always told me, “A mistake is not a mistake if you learn from it.”
Why do I say the process was doomed? Because the only potential candidates for the School Board members were educators. As the husband of a teacher, I am keenly aware of the importance of qualified teachers. However, the voters did not say the Superintendent had to teach. No, they wanted the Board to select someone who could manage.
What the School Board members owe us, the citizens and students, is their expectation of the position to shape the selection process. Is it someone who can build trust? Is it someone who can manage metrics? Again, that needs to be determined by the elected Escambia County School Board Members.
Once done, they need to allow the process to find individuals who meet those skills with experience and not limited to education. That does not mean the next Superintendent won’t be someone in education. It simply means anyone from the military, private sector, or other management experience should have the opportunity to constructively manage education for the betterment of our students. It is skills, experience and the betterment of students that should drive our education, not arbitrary feelings and politics.
I have great respect for all five of our Escambia School Board members, but the success of our education system is in their hands. They need to be serious and diligent about the process and allow it to find the right person who should be supported. Whether right, center or left, the one thing we can all agree on is that we need less politics in our education.