No Administrator Left Behind

By CHERI RAE

There’s an old, if indelicate phrase, “The fish stinks from the head.” When tracking down solutions to some problems, it’s frequently a smart—if not obvious—strategy to follow your nose and look to the top. In the case of the troubled Santa Barbara Elementary and High School Districts, that’s right where we should start.

Now I’m no expert in the jargon and jumble of programs, acronyms and institutions that education administrators point to—some might suggest hide behind—when justifying their positions to the public. But I’m no dummy, either. While we might not speak the same language, it’s clear enough to the unschooled in bureaucrat-ese that common sense ought to play some part in righting the wrongs and cleaning up the mess that our schools are in right now.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the decision to hire the district’s most recent director of special education, Anissa McNeil, was ill-advised at best. I’m certainly not the only parent who objected to McNeil’s abrupt reassignment of personnel throughout the district, or who perceived her lack of respect for individual school culture, the concerns of parents and the needs of students. Her perspective was apparent to me after a single one-on-one meeting with her early this past summer. But school district administrators who hired her allowed her to behave in the manner familiar to many who encountered her for far too long—turning the lives of too many special education families upside-down.

And it doesn’t take a Ph.D. to understand the frustration, desperation, and even humiliation privately expressed by teachers in this district who tell harrowing tales of their adventures in education throughout the school year. Indeed, friends who teach here—dedicated professionals who hold advanced degrees—have become accustomed to the indignity of receiving pink slips at the end of the school year. Forced to juggle their family budgets and rearrange their lives in a mad scramble during the summer, many are finally re-hired at the last minute—some with hours (and pay) drastically cut. And now there’s talk of mid-year cuts as well. But school district administrators—who enjoy the stability afforded by lengthy and lucrative contracts—apparently find this kind of unsettling and demeaning treatment of their employees (unheard-of elsewhere) reasonable and appropriate in Santa Barbara.  

Just six months into a three-year contract with an annual salary of $204,000, Superintendent J. Brian Sarvis recently asked for a year’s extension on that contract. This was after his October 13 memo acknowledging the current economic crisis, but before the widespread outcry by parents about the unsuitability of the newly hired special education director. Focus on special education issues soon developed into a crisis, hotly discussed in School Board meetings and on local blogs. It culminated in McNeil’s resignation late last month; her sudden and unexpected departure was widely applauded by parents and teachers alike—with full knowledge that myriad problems remain unsolved in a historically dysfunctional special education department.

But financial concerns and special education aren’t the only crises in our school district these days. According to a November letter addressed to parents of all students in the Santa Barbara Elementary School District, and signed by the superintendent, the Local Educational Agency (LEA) has not met the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) goals set by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the California Department of Education. Consequently, the district “has been identified as a Program Improvement LEA.”  

Add Santa Barbara High School to that list as well; according to the California Department of Education, Policy and Education Division, it has not made Adequate Yearly Progress, either, and it, too, is identified for Program Improvement on its Accountability Progress Reporting, updated November 18, 2008. (But you wouldn’t know that if you checked out the district’s website; its information about SBHS hasn’t been updated since July 13, 2007—which is still better than some district schools listed on the website that haven’t been updated since 2005.)

The motto of the Santa Barbara School Districts is “Excellence For All.” But I’m a bit confused about what that means. The elementary school district is not making Adequate Yearly Progress, neither is Santa Barbara High; an inappropriate new hire under the superintendent’s supervision wrecked untold damage on the special education department that will last far longer than her short tenure; students’ achievement, parental confidence and teacher morale has suffered; and the school district can’t even keep its website-up-to-date—none of which qualifies as excellence by any measure. And the guy in charge of it all is asking for a contract extension?

Well, he was, until it must have looked unseemly even to him, and he withdrew the request until the end of the school year.

I think the job of the superintendent is to make sure the schools under his direction are at the very least, making Adequate Yearly Progress, and striving for excellence. If they aren’t making the grade, perhaps a better discussion would be to extend or renew the superintendent’s contract based on performance. Students, teachers, even schools are evaluated on their progress by measurable improvement standards, why not the head administrator, too?

How Sarvis could even think of asking for a contract extension now—or even in June—is as tone deaf to reality as the automobile executives flying in on corporate jets. It is an indefensible expectation of entitlement over accomplishment. The School Board should require the superintendent to complete an assignment in Accountability Progress Reporting with a grade that reflects excellence in comprehension and performance. Failure to do so simply provides an opportunity for extra credit when academic probation is more appropriate.     

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Accountability : 12/5/2008

The last paragraph sums it up perfectly! At the minimum let's hold administrators to the same standards required of teachers...blind trust isn't working... what happened to accountability?

Nadya Penoff

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Education Reform : 12/28/2008

Dear Ms. Rae, Thank you for calling our community to awareness. Please join us on www.sbschooltalk.ning.com!

Kate Smith

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Accountability 1/6/09 : 1/6/2009

Thank you for digging deeper and providing to those of us outside the school district culture a clearer perspective on this issue than the first article I read in the Independent. I wholeheartedly agree with holding administrators accountable--particularly this one--and basing contract extensions on performance. I know someone who works in Special Education whose job and life were negatively impacted by the decisions of McNeil. Now I see that this was not an isolated incident, and it makes me angry. Anonymous

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