Portland might meet its next school superintendent by the end of the month.
Board members of Portland Public Schools have already interviewed five candidates and will interview a sixth Wednesday, Chairman Tom Koehler said Tuesday. The goal is to winnow the candidate pool down to three finalists, who would then go through a lengthy interview process next week, he said.
Oregon’s largest district has been without a permanent superintendent since July, when longtime leader Carole Smith stepped down in the wake of a lead crisis.
The search process has become point of contention for the school board, with members going so far as to duke out their differences in the editorial pages of The Oregonian. Board members Steve Buel and Paul Anthony argued the process was secretive, while the rest of the board signed an editorial penned by Koehler that aimed to “set the record straight” and characterized the process as open and transparent.
The board majority piece even included a dig at Buel and Anthony: “It is disappointing that our effort to recruit from the best and brightest from across the country could be jeopardized because of misinformation being presented about the hiring process.”
Board members will interview candidates and finalists in executive session, which are closed to the public but open to reporters who are prohibited from reporting what happens. The finalists will also be interviewed privately by a 17-member community stakeholder committee (.pdf)
The board will then agree privately on which candidate they like best, then check the person’s references. Those references will include the person’s board chairperson, teachers’ union president, a senior school official and two community contacts, including one with business ties.
The only candidate the public will meet will be the final choice.
OPB has raised questions about whether the secrecy of the stakeholder advisory panel’s secret advice to the board breaks public meeting rules.
Once the final candidate is chosen, the public will be informed, and a group of Portlanders, who have yet to be decided, will go to the prospective superintendent’s district to vet him or her. Buel and Anthony have argued that this process is too closed.
“As it’s laid out, we’re supposed to base the choice on a process that’s really easy to game,” Anthony, who served as chief financial officer of a business valuation firm, said in an interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive on Tuesday. “The best hire I ever made was the person who gave the worst interview I have ever seen. The worst hire I ever made was the person who did the best interview I have ever seen.
So far though, Koehler says everything is on track and going well. The sixth candidate being interviewed this week was brought in after the board felt it needed to interview one more person, he said. Koehler would not say whether board members felt that need because a candidate or candidates dropped out or the current pool didn’t meet board expectations.
“I think it’s been great,” Koehler said. “We had a large pool of candidates to draw from and we feel confident about the quality of the candidates and look forward to ultimately introducing our next superintendent.”
bbarnes@oregonian.com
@betsbarnes
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