An ongoing challenge to a school corporation is to keep its constituents informed whether its teachers passing knowledge to youth or elected school board members getting its message to parents and taxpayers.
A key word to keep in mind is transparency.
Such shining openness should come into play when a school board goes about the mission of closing schools, changing educational programs and hiring a superintendent, the person who formulates and carries out the board’s mission in the community, among other jobs.
For Anderson Community Schools, we point to the agenda published before each board meeting.
Judging by the agenda posted for the Nov. 10 session, no one would have ever known that the board was undertaking its most important staff hire in, perhaps, more than a decade. Instead, the hiring of Felix Chow as new schools superintendent was an unadvertised special.
Pause for just a second in this discussion.
Anderson eagerly awaits Chow’s arrival on Jan. 1. Parents, students and staff have waited too long for a leader who can present workable ideas to resolve crises in test scores, graduation rates and image. The final four candidates were all from out of state, indicating the board’s acknowledgement that solutions needed to come from outside the district.
But why didn’t the Anderson school board consider Chow’s hiring to be worthy of one line printed on the agenda for Nov. 10? The omission points to the board’s neglect of transparency and openness in matters deemed important by the community.
For example, in September Chad Cook was hired as Highland girls basketball coach. Kyle Schwingendorf was picked as Anderson High School football coach in June. Both were unadvertised specials.
Perhaps the school board wants to quietly hire staffers to avoid a situation like approval of Jason Delaney as Highland boys basketball coach in July, only to find out he’s been suspended without pay from a prior position.
The board has been embarrassed by hires in the past.
Other districts provide more than adequate agendas. South Madison’s runs for three or four pages with agenda items marked with explanatory paragraphs.
This is all said in light of the upcoming announcement of a new superintendent for Elwood schools. Such hiring is cause for celebration. It’s not something that should be quietly approved by a school board.
As it is the role of a teacher to educate students, it is the duty of a school board to educate the public. There’s no room for reluctance in discussing critical programming and important hires to a school district. The hiring of Felix Chow should herald a new attitude, not only with education but with being transparent to the public.
