Superintendent Murley's Calm Seas, Smooth Sailing

April 29, 2010, 7:00 a.m.
[May 2 Addendum on UIHC "patient satisfaction," at bottom of entry.]

[This is the eleventh in what is, as of this morning, an eleven-part series on the Iowa City schools' selection of a new superintendent: "School Boundaries: There Are Better Ways," April 16, 2010 (with links to 23 prior, related blog entries and other writing); "How to Pick a School Superintendent; And My Questions for Candidates," April 17, 2010; "Bringing Home the Bacon and Bezek," April 20, 2010, "ICCSD's Triple Play: From Bezek to Murley to Meeks; Bezek Can Talk the Talk -- On Four Hours' Sleep," April 21, 2010; "Hurlyburly Over Murley," April 22, 2010; "IC Board Peeks at Meeks; Brad Meeks Rounds Out Three Finalists," April 23, 2010; "Finalists Responses? Decision Sunday? Finalists Offered Last Word," April 24, 2010; "IC Supers' Email: Bezek Responds, Murley & Meeks Don't; Constituent Relations Important -- But No Deal Breaker," April 25, 2010; "Where There's No Smoke There's No Fire; How Many School Board Members Does It Take to Screw Up a Superintendent Selection?" April 26, 2010; "School Boards, Superintendents, Contracts & Candor; The End of the Beginning But 'What Did They Know and When Did They Know It?'" April 28, 2010.] (Photo credit: The Gazette.)

The Morning After the Night Before
and "Compared to What?" ICCSD vs. UIHC
(Brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
Following the confusion Tuesday night regarding what the Board knew and did, and when they knew and did it (see "School Boards, Superintendents, Contracts & Candor; The End of the Beginning But 'What Did They Know and When Did They Know It?'" April 28, 2010), by the following morning the Gazette's Gregg Hennigan was talking to ICCSD President Patti Fields, the Board members were saying how enthusiastic they were about Steve Murley and why, and Murley was continuing to say the right things with skill.

You don't pull up your tomato plants two days after you plant them to see how the roots are doing, and you don't judge a new superintendent two days after the Board says he's hired. But, as the English channel swimmer told the inquiring reporter right after she dived in, "So far so good."

Here are this morning's reports on who said what yesterday: Rob Daniel, "Board impressed by Murley's enthusiasm; Superintendent pick stood out, members say," Iowa City Press-Citizen, April 29, 2010, p. A1; Gregg Hennigan, "Plenty of Issues to Greet New Superintendent in I.C.," The Gazette, April 29, 2010, p. A3; Keith Uhlig, "Departing Superintendent Won't Receive Severance or Bonus Pay," Wausau Daily Herald, April 29, 2010.

"What We've Got Here is a Failure to Communicate"

As our sensory inputs get filtered through the electro-chemical soup that is our brain, and come out as human language, it is indeed a miracle that there is as much understanding among us as occasionally occurs. (See, Wendell Johnson, "The Communication Process and General Semantic Principles.")

And so it was the evening of April 25 after the School Board discussed the three finalists in closed session, and President Patti Fields responded to reporters' questions. See "School Boards, Superintendents, Contracts & Candor; The End of the Beginning But 'What Did They Know and When Did They Know It?'" April 28, 2010.

I am about as certain as I can be that there was no malevolence on either side. Patti, aware of what she could, and could not, tell the media tried to relay something without giving away what was apparently the fact at that time: by the end of its meeting that evening the Board had, for all practical purposes, come to a unanimous agreement to hire Murley. All that was left were the contract details.

What she said (based on the newspapers' reports, and with some approximation by me), was seemingly technically accurate. That is, until contract terms have been agreed to the Board has not picked its superintendent. So to say Sunday evening that the Board hadn't reached a decision, that no one had been eliminated, that it might hold another closed session, and that she hoped there would be a decision to announce in the next few days, was from her perspective literally accurate and the equivalent of saying, "We've unanimously chosen the one we want, but we won't be announcing anything until the contract is agreed to."

However, the professional journalists from the Iowa City Press-Citizen, The Gazette, Wausau Daily Herald -- and the amateur blogger who is myself -- were certainly reasonable, from their perspective, and within the context of what they were asking, to interpret what she said differently.

When they are asking whether the Board has made a choice, it is not unreasonable for them to interpret what they are told as a reply to that question. And "no decision," "no one has been eliminated," "we may have another closed meeting," and "we hope to have a decision in the next few days," in normal, day-to-day colloquial speech can most reasonably be interpreted to mean, "No, we have not yet been able to settle on whom we want."

And in this context, the exchange between Hennigan and Fields set forth yesterday in "School Boards, Superintendents, Contracts & Candor; The End of the Beginning But 'What Did They Know and When Did They Know It?'" April 28, 2010, regarding the distinction between "may" and "expect to" hold another closed session is kind of beside the point. Any reference to a future meeting, regardless of what words preceded it, in the context of the questions asked and the responses provided, further supports the reasonable inference that no decision had been made.

In retrospect, as suggested in that blog entry, perhaps Patti should have stuck with, "as they said at the outset, 'We have nothing to announce this evening. Once a finalist has been selected and a contract agreed upon and signed, we will let you know.'" That would have been far better than either (a) refusing to talk to the media at all, or providing them only a "No comment," or (b) using language that risked the misunderstanding that ultimately resulted, through no real fault on the part of the reporters it seems to me.

On the other hand, the reporters might have done more. Presumably they (and I) knew the process: Board members settle on a first choice and then try to work out the contract; meanwhile they announce nothing to any of the finalists, media or public (in case they end up needing to go back to one of those rejected); once the contract details are settled on the announcement is made. With that understanding, and years of experience trying to get a straight answer out of institutional leaders, they (we) might have framed some more penetrating questions than "have you made a decision?"

We still don't know exactly what happened Sunday evening, nor what happened between then and Tuesday night's meeting. But unless something sufficiently dramatic about either comes to my attention in the next few days, it's my intention that this comment is the last you'll see in this blog on the subject/s.

Compared to what?

Much in life must be addressed as Henny Youngman responded to the man who asked him, "How's your wife?" to which he replied, "Compared to what?"

Well, compared to the UIHC, the ICCSD's public/media relations rank right up there with the slickest and most professional New York, Los Angeles, or Washington public relations firms.

You don't know the story?

It turns out the hospital just found out that it somehow overlooked billing patients for $11 million worth of services. I never had that problem with them. My problem was getting billed twice for the same service. (Although I'm quite willing to grant that it was in all likelihood the result of the same kind of incompetence and lack of management oversight, not dishonest, knowing double-billing.) But wouldn't you think you'd discover a shortage before it reached $11 million? I would; I enter every receipt, every check, every weekend. If I'm off by a nickel I have to try to remember when and where I put it into a parking meter. Don't they do anything like that?


What makes it worse, it was an audit by the Regents that discovered the shortfall, not the UIHC's audit, or management oversight. (Photo credit: Opoien, Iowa State Daily, February 4, 2010 meeting.)

B.A. Morelli, "Audit finds $11M UIHC billing error; Regents also approve a 6% rate increase at meeting," Iowa City Press-Citizen, April 29, 2010, p. A1; and the DI's two, page one, above-the-fold stories this morning, side by side: Emily Busse, "UIHC Missing $11 Million," The Daily Iowan, April 29, 2010, p. A1, and Nora Heaton, "UIHC To Raise Its Rates," The Daily Iowan, April 29, 2010, p. A1.

But here's the kicker: If you have any public relations sense at all, you don't announce that you've lost $11 million the same day you announce a 6% increase in your rate card, a $73 million new outpatient clinic in Coralville, . . .



. . . all while making a herculean effort to explain why "The problems were not because of a new $60 million hospital computer system called Epic" -- a computer system that has been widely criticized for a variety of reasons. (Video credit: benhillmedia; full disclosure: actors include son, Jason Grubbe (Actors Equity), Jim Van Valen, and Martin Andrews.)

Why, that would be like announcing you're no longer going to let patients park for free while they wait hours beyond their appointment time, at about the same time you announce the first question you're going to put to patients when they check in will be, "Hey, would you like to make a 'voluntary' contribution? How much?"

Oh, they did that, too? And they were all going to go to Disney World in Orlando to find out how to improve patient satisfaction?

Oh, well, never mind.

So we do need to put the Board's media relations this week into some kind of perspective. Compared to the UIHC the School Board is spectacular.

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Patient Satisfaction

Here is some dramatic testimony regarding patient frustration with UIHC, and a Press-Citizen column on the subject.

I have written at some length before about "patient satisfaction" at the UIHC, e.g., Nicholas Johnson, "Mickey Mouse Patient Satisfaction; UIHC's Troubles: Is Orlando the Answer?" November 8, 2009.

The serious-while-lighthearted column is by former City Council member Bob Elliott, "Cheaper customer service training," Iowa City Press-Citizen, April 30, 2010.

But the most serious commentary about UIHC patient satisfaction is found in a comment entered online about Bob Elliott's column by one of the hospital's frustrated, unsuccessful-want-to-be patients:

catdancing

NickIowa,
I read your blog and I couldn't agree more on the problems at UIHC. Right now I'm in the process of trying to find another place to go for medical care. The last couple of times I tried to make an appointment, I was stuck on hold for an hour. The first time I did get through and was told that the next appointment time was six weeks from then. I had an infection in my ear lobe that was oozing pus, swollen lymph node in my neck, low grade fever. The second time I gave up. My right foot is swollen, painful, possible hairline fracture. My left hip hurts so much (probable result of limping) it keeps me awake nights. This has been the case for five months.
My insurance was through IowaCare which meant I had to go to UIHC or IowaCare wouldn't pay for it. I dropped coverage because I was paying for care I could not access. Now I have no insurance and nowhere to go and no option except to wait for Medicare to kick in.
This is beyond a customer service problem. This is systemic.
5/2/2010 6:25:17 AM

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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself.
-- Nicholas Johnson
# # #

School Boards, Superintendents, Contracts & Candor

April 28, 2010, 6:15 a.m.
Now with 7:00 p.m. Addendum at bottom of blog entry: "So What Really Happened?"

[This is the tenth in what is, as of this morning, a ten-part series on the Iowa City schools' search for a new superintendent: "School Boundaries: There Are Better Ways," April 16, 2010 (with links to 23 prior, related blog entries and other writing); "How to Pick a School Superintendent; And My Questions for Candidates," April 17, 2010; "Bringing Home the Bacon and Bezek," April 20, 2010, "ICCSD's Triple Play: From Bezek to Murley to Meeks; Bezek Can Talk the Talk -- On Four Hours' Sleep," April 21, 2010; "Hurlyburly Over Murley," April 22, 2010; "IC Board Peeks at Meeks; Brad Meeks Rounds Out Three Finalists," April 23, 2010; "Finalists Responses? Decision Sunday? Finalists Offered Last Word," April 24, 2010; "IC Supers' Email: Bezek Responds, Murley & Meeks Don't; Constituent Relations Important -- But No Deal Breaker," April 25, 2010; "Where There's No Smoke There's No Fire; How Many School Board Members Does It Take to Screw Up a Superintendent Selection?" April 26, 2010.]

The End of the Beginning
But 'What Did They Know and When Did They Know It?'
(Brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
The ICCSD School Board has selected Steve Murley, Superintendent at Wausau, Wisconsin, to be Superintendent Lane Plugge's replacement starting July 1, 2010. It represents the end of the beginning of the a new superintendent's tour of duty, but only the beginning of what we all hope will be a long, productive and progressive experience for Steve Murley, the Board members, and community alike.

You read it first right here, last evening at 7:15 p.m. (The Press-Citizen had the story posted online by 7:52.)

This morning that paper, and The Gazette, had further details in the hard copy and online editions. Rob Daniel, "District hires superintendent; Murley to take over position July 1," Iowa City Press-Citizen, April 28, 2010, p. A1; Gregg Hennigan, "Iowa City School Board Hires Wisconsin Superintendent to Lead District; No Decision Reported After Board Members Met Sunday Evening," The Gazette, April 28, 2010, p. A1 (the link goes to the early evening Gazette Online story and does not contain everything in the hard copy version, discussed below); Keith Uhlig, "Superintendent takes Iowa job; Wausau to begin search for new school boss," Wausau Daily Herald, April 28, 2010; Holly Hines, "Murley to Be New Iowa City School District Superintendent," The Daily Iowan, April 28, 2010.

There's not much new information about Murley in those stories. But we are left with some disturbing questions about the process followed by the Board in arriving at its decision, and the candor with which it communicated about that process to the public and media.

If you're interested in how we got here, the nine prior blog entries on the process and the finalists are linked at the top of this page. The most directly applicable to Murley are "Hurlyburly Over Murley," April 22, 2010, and his statement for this blog at the bottom of "IC Supers' Email: Bezek Responds, Murley & Meeks Don't; Constituent Relations Important -- But No Deal Breaker," April 25, 2010 (he and Meeks both responded, but too late to modify the blog entry headline).

I concluded the last blog entry with an excerpt:

Steve Murley wrote, in pertinent part, "You stated that, 'Indeed, one should be extremely suspicious of anyone who would be willing to be considered for the job of working with such a school board.' Your comment was made in reference to concerns that you enumerated about the lack of a clear governance system, delineation of measurable goals, discussion of educational innovations, and absence of metrics for results measurement related to boundary changes. I am in full agreement with you that these are indeed important issues for the Board to tackle. However, the absence of these does not indicate to me that the Board has chosen to ignore them or that the Board thinks they are unworthy of attention."

That is an observant, insightful, well written and very positive and politic statement. Any superintendent who comes here acknowledging concerns regarding our Board's "lack of a clear governance system, delineation of measurable goals, discussion of educational innovations, and absence of metrics for results measurement related to boundary changes," and can articulate it in a way that expresses optimism in the possibility of solutions -- not to mention still be hired! -- is starting off on the right foot so far as I'm concerned.

"What Did They Know and When Did They Know It?"

None of what follows reflects in one way or another on Steve Murley.

As for the Board, however, the take-away from Daniel's and Hennigan's stories (and an earlier one in the Wausau paper) is troubling.

How and when did the Board actually make this decision? Were its statements to the media and public deliberately designed to be misleading? Was its process legal? Even if legal, does it owe the public and media more candor?

As Hennigan writes in the early Online edition,

Fields said the board was unanimous in its support for him. The board met for two and half hours Sunday night in closed session, but Fields said afterward they had not come to an agreement on whom to hire.

She also said the board expected to hold another closed session to discuss the matter further. If the full board met again, it does not appear it sent out notice of the meeting, as is required by state law.

It’s not clear when the board made its decision. The board is currently holding its regular meeting and is not available for questions.

The hard copy this morning continues,

Murley said he had been in talks with the board, its attorney and the search consultant on and off since Sunday evening. Fields did not say what Murley's salary will be. Murley said they were still negotiating that.

[In fairness to Board President Patti Fields, although I'm not sure it doesn't increase rather than decrease the total confusion, she has put the following comment on the Gazette Online version of Hennigan's story about 8:00 a.m. this morning: "Greg, since you and I spoke late on Sunday night maybe you don't remember what I said. I did not say the board expected to have another closed session, I said that we had the option and we had until Monday night to add it to our agenda. For clarification, until an agreement is reached all candidates are still in consideration. The board did not meet again and it is concerning to make such allegation without actually talking to any board member."]

[And now, in fairness to Gregg Hennigan . . .. I know this is getting to sound a little silly; like, why don't I just hold their coats and let them fight? But because this blog endeavors, at least on some occasions, to be "the blog of record," and because Gregg has provided a somewhat detailed explanation of what happened, I have set it forth in full at the bottom of this blog entry.]

Not incidentally, the Wausau Daily Herald story this morning, linked above, continues to report his current, 2009-10, salary at Wausau as $152,700 (in contrast with an earlier local news story saying it was in excess of $200,000).

Rob Daniel reports, above,

The selection followed a closed session special board meeting Sunday night after which Fields said no decision had been reached. She said Tuesday night that the selection of Murley was a unanimous decision. . . .

Murley said he received the first draft of his contract from district attorney Kirsten Frey earlier Tuesday. He deferred to the school board on how the offer was made to him.

Fields said the board was talking with Murley as early as Sunday, but no official decision was made.

"Until an offer is made and accepted, everyone is still in play," she said.

Fields said the board does not need to vote in open session when selecting a candidate for a position like superintendent, but the board will need to vote when it decides what will go into Murley's contract. The final salary and benefits package are still in the process of being negotiated, but Fields said the board expects to vote on the contract at one of its meetings in May.

At the outset the Board seemed to indicate that its process would involve (1) making its first choice from among the three (which would not be announced at that time), followed by (2) a time for negotiating the terms of a contract, following which (3) an announcement of their choice would be made once the contract was signed. (Unfortunately, I cannot recall off the top of my head which paper this was in and when, but I suspect it is reproduced somewhere in this series of ten blog entries.)

At a minimum, it would seem that process was not followed. (a) If the terms of the contract are still being negotiated, and are going to be voted on "sometime in May," it seems to me there is still the possibility, however remote, that this is not yet a fully done deal. (b) Both Daniel and Hennigan report they were told "no decision had been reached" at the Sunday night meeting. The Board said at that time that no one had been eliminated. (As late as yesterday morning's edition, the Wausau paper was reporting that "School Board President Patti Fields said the board hoped to have a decision in the next few days." "Superintendent Awaits Job News," Wausau Daily Herald, April 27, 2010.) (c) Thus, I think one can fairly conclude that either a decision was reached sometime between Sunday night and Tuesday evening at 7:00 p.m., or that the Board was not candid in saying Sunday night that no consensus had yet emerged. Which would be worse?

Where, when and how was the decision arrived at?

The Board says that it "does not need to vote in open session when selecting a candidate for a position like superintendent."

There are two issues here. (1) Are there circumstances when the open meetings law permits a school board to hold their discussions in a meeting not open to the public and the media? The answer to that is, "yes." (2) Was what they did, and the way they did it, legal under the terms of the open meetings law and its exceptions? The answer to that question turns on facts that are not now available to us; but from a first glance it looks like the Board may have violated the law -- and certainly the public's trust and confidence.

(What follows is based on my memory, not legal research. It is not a "legal opinion," it is a blogger's, and former school board member's opinion. So if you really care about this stuff, and need to know the law precisely, talk to a lawyer.)

The question is not whether it's possible to meet in closed session, the question is how Board members are to go about doing that. The law requires all Board meetings to be open meetings, and that, in turn, requires prior notice of the meeting, a public agenda, and other things.

Once a legal open meeting has begun, it is possible for a Board member to make a motion that the Board go into a closed meeting -- stating the legal justification for doing so. That motion is voted on, and if passed, the closed meeting begins (and must be tape recorded).

Without going into detail about what exceptions to the open meetings law permit closed meetings, it is certainly possible to make the argument that a discussion of the merits and demerits of a potential hire -- or whether or not to terminate an employee -- could sometimes justify a closed session.

Following the closed session, the Board is required to come back into open meeting before adjourning, and to vote in open meeting on anything requiring a vote.

Thus, had the Board gone through this process, it could have announced and held another open meeting between Sunday evening and Tuesday evening; at that meeting it could have gone into closed session and agreed on the finalist with whom it wished to try to negotiate a contract.

However, it does not appear to have done that.

If it believed that it could continue a "rolling" meeting from which it never adjourned until last night, it was in error. If the Board members got together for another, secret and unannounced meeting, they were in error. If they continued talking by non-synchronous phone and email messages, during the course of which a de facto decision gradually emerged, they were in error.

If they in fact had arrived at a decision Sunday night -- given that they then announced they were unanimous in eliminating no one, and now say they were unanimous in choosing Murley -- they were unnecessarily duplicitous in saying they had made no decision.

They could have simply said, as they said at the outset, "We have nothing to announce this evening. Once a finalist has been selected and a contract agreed upon and signed, we will let you know."

They did not. As Hennigan reports, they said they "had not come to an agreement on whom to hire [and that] the board expected to hold another closed session to discuss the matter further."

As with former President Nixon, the question is, "What did they know and when did they know it?"

While we wait for those answers, meanwhile we can congratulate the Board for getting this choice behind us -- or at least almost nearly so, once the contract is negotiated, signed, and voted on by the Board.

Now we welcome Steve Murley to Iowa City, look forward to getting to know him better, and the governance policy and management tools he will bring with him and work through with our Board.

7:00 p.m. : Addendum: So What Really Happened? Here's Gregg Hennigan's take:

Fields explains superintendent selection process

Posted on Apr 28, 2010 by Gregg Hennigan.

IOWA CITY – How and when did the Iowa City school board makes its decision to hire Stephen Murley as the next superintendent?

There was some confusion Tuesday night, as you can see from the story here.

I spoke with board President Patti Fields Wednesday morning.

First, some background. The school board met Sunday night in closed session, with the goal of picking a new superintendent.

I talked with Fields after the meeting. My first question was whether they had made a decision. She said the board was “still working through our process.”

I asked her what that meant and whether they had made a selection. She said that the board hoped to have something figured out in the next three days and that they had not eliminated any of the three candidates.

She also said the board could meet in another closed session to discuss the matter further.

We didn’t hear anything more until Fields announced Murley’s hiring Tuesday night.

Wednesday morning, Fields said she was not trying to be misleading the other day. She said board members were unanimous in naming Murley their “preferred” candidate, but in case they couldn’t reach an agreement with him, they did not rule anyone out.

“We can’t even say we’ve ‘selected,’” Fields said, “because when you start saying you’ve selected, then it means you also threw (out) the other two.”

She said she had to choose her words carefully on Sunday. I wish I had asked her then if they had a “preferred” candidate.

By the way, the Press-Citizen ran into this issue of semantics too.

Patti, I may have to give you the “Meet the Press” treatment from now on.

(That is a joke. Fields and I had a very good talk this morning.)

On to her comments on the GazetteOnline story. I initially wrote that she said Sunday that the board “expected” to hold another closed session.

I quickly changed that to “may” in subsequent updates and for the newspaper, but I apologize for the poor word choice in the first update.

And on her other point, I did not have a chance to talk with board members Tuesday night. Fields made the announcement during the board meeting, and the meeting continued, without a break, until well past our deadline. I did not allege that they broke the open meetings law. I just pointed out that if they met, they did not send out the required notice.

Believe me, I wanted to ask some questions.

Gregg Hennigan, "Fields Explains Superintendent Selection Process," Gazette Online, April 28, 2010.

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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself.
-- Nicholas Johnson
# # #

Where There's No Smoke There's No Fire

April 26, 2010, 6:15 a.m.

Update April 27, 7:15 p.m.: It's Steve Murley! (see below)

Update April 27, a.m.: ICCSD President Fields says decision in "next few days," link below.

[This is the ninth in what is, as of this morning, a nine-part series on the Iowa City schools' search for a new superintendent: "School Boundaries: There Are Better Ways," April 16, 2010 (with links to 23 prior, related blog entries and other writing); "How to Pick a School Superintendent; And My Questions for Candidates," April 17, 2010; "Bringing Home the Bacon and Bezek," April 20, 2010, "ICCSD's Triple Play: From Bezek to Murley to Meeks; Bezek Can Talk the Talk -- On Four Hours' Sleep," April 21, 2010; "Hurlyburly Over Murley," April 22, 2010; "IC Board Peeks at Meeks; Brad Meeks Rounds Out Three Finalists," April 23, 2010; "Finalists Responses? Decision Sunday? Finalists Offered Last Word," April 24, 2010; and "IC Supers' Email: Bezek Responds, Murley & Meeks Don't; Constituent Relations Important -- But No Deal Breaker," April 25, 2010.]

How Many School Board Members Does It Take to Screw Up a Superintendent Selection?
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
April 27, 7:15 p.m.: Tuned into the Tuesday evening Board meeting on cable, and caught the Board members referring to scheduling a meet and greet with "Steve" once he gets a break in his schedule, and other remarks relating to the selection of a superintendent, which makes it virtually certain that the remarks must have been preceded with the announcement of their selection of Steve Murley as the superintendent to replace the departing Lane Plugge. By 7:52 it was confirmed by the Press-Citizen: Rob Daniel, "District Names New Superintendent," Iowa City Press-Citizen Online, April 27, 2010, 7:52 p.m.

What follows is the April 26, 2010, blog entry as entered that morning:
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No puff of white smoke emerged from the ICCSD Central Administrative Office last night; nor, apparently, did much of anything else emerge, except for seven undecided school board members who simply gave up and went home after a 2-1/2-hour discussion. Rob Daniel, "School board: No decision yet on superintendent; Board members may discuss hire Tuesday," Iowa City Press-Citizen, April 26, 2010, p. A1.

I do have sympathy for them. I do. I've been there, done that. I'm grateful they're willing to serve -- up to and including giving over their Sunday evenings to Board business.

But honestly, what does it take to get a decision, a commitment, out of this gang? It's four months they've been at this; see, "The Plugge Era: 1999-2010," December 24, 2009; "School Board Can't Do Job? There They Go Again," January 7, 2010 (and roughly a year on boundary changes yet to be decided). As I understand it, they've had the input of a search committee, a full list of possibles, two rounds of interviews with the three who became finalists, each of whom on this last round spent a day of tours and meetings in the District, capped off with a 45-minute "meet and greet" with the public and an hour-plus in a public interview Q-and-A on camera. Board members have had the benefit of numerous newspaper stories and opinion pieces in the three local newspapers (and, he adds modestly, now nine all-too-lengthy entries in this blog, linked above). They've had plenty of time to do their own, individual calling around the finalists' communities. The video of the public interviews were supposed to have run over this past weekend; so there's been at least as much exposure of the finalists to the general public as there usually would be -- with an opportunity for individuals to pass along their reactions to the Board.

Board members have essentially four possible choices: one through three are to select any one of the three finalists; choice four is to reject all three and do another search. The Gazette reports that the Board is leaning in none of those directions: "as board President Patti Fields put it, members have not eliminated any of the three candidates." "No Decision Yet on New IC Superintendent," The Gazette, April 26, 2010, p. A3. The Wausau Daily Herald reports that "School Board President Patti Fields said the board hoped to have a decision in the next few days." "Superintendent Awaits Job News," Wausau Daily Herald, April 27, 2010.

Our Board members are well educated, experienced, well-intentioned, politically sensitive and otherwise able individuals -- unpaid volunteers, generously giving of their time. The problem seems to be, as is so often the case with boards without a fully considered and applied governance model, what happens when they try to function as a group. See Patti Fields Blog.

You may have seen this poster about "Meetings," with the caption: "None of us is as dumb as all of us." [Credit: Despair, Inc.]

Offered an opportunity to have the "last word" in this blog series (see "Finalists Responses? Decision Sunday? Finalists Offered Last Word," April 24, 2010), Steve Murley did his best to come to our Board's defense; see "IC Supers' Email: Bezek Responds, Murley & Meeks Don't; Constituent Relations Important -- But No Deal Breaker," April 25, 2010 (contrary to the heading, Murley did respond, but too late to make the original publication, so was inserted at the bottom of the original blog entry; and as of late morning today Brad Meeks also had a reply, also at the bottom of that blog entry).

Steve Murley wrote, in pertinent part, "You stated that, 'Indeed, one should be extremely suspicious of anyone who would be willing to be considered for the job of working with such a school board.' Your comment was made in reference to concerns that you enumerated about the lack of a clear governance system, delineation of measurable goals, discussion of educational innovations, and absence of metrics for results measurement related to boundary changes. I am in full agreement with you that these are indeed important issues for the Board to tackle. However, the absence of these does not indicate to me that the Board has chosen to ignore them or that the Board thinks they are unworthy of attention."

In short, in my words: "wherever our Board members may be headed, they just ain't there yet."
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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself.
-- Nicholas Johnson
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