School Superintendent Search Gets Gnarly

By Ann K. Williams
Staff Writer

May 18 -- Less than a month after Dr. John E. Deasy left Santa Monica, critics of the former superintendent are starting to come out of their shells.

At the heart of the emerging controversy are conflicting reports about the search to find Deasy’s replacement and whether or not the district should be looking for a new kind of leader.

While some insiders say the process is moving forward smoothly, others are worried that their voices won’t count.

When Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates -- the national headhunters leading the search -- presented a preliminary report to the School Board last month, some interpreted the findings as a call to find another superintendent like Deasy.

“It looks like we’re trying to rehire John,” remarked board member Maria Leon-Vazquez at the April 26 meeting.

But that that’s not what some PTA Council and District Advisory Committee (DAC) members say they told the search firm.

Special Education DAC parents said they were “displeased” by Deasy’s leadership, according to committee Chair Ken Haker.

Haker said his group told the headhunters there was a “sense that people were afraid to speak out” when Deasy led the district.

And one parent with a decade of high-profile community involvement said parents at the meeting talked about a “climate of fear” among school employees under Deasy.

“People who disagreed in public were fired or demoted,” said the parent, who didn’t want to be identified.

Deasy, who now heads Saint George's County Public Schools in the Washington, D.C. area, could not be reached for comment Thursday morning.

Criticisms of Deasy -- who had his detractors when he came from Rhode Island five years ago -- took different forms at recent meetings with the headhunters. (see story)

Irene Zivi, a member of the Child Care and Development DAC, said, “We had lost ground over the last five years” under Deasy’s leadership.

“We all hope and pray that the new superintendent will see it (early childhood education) as essential,” Zivi said. “I don’t think that’s been true.”

PTA Council member Susan Geisberg interpreted much of what she heard from her peers during their meeting with the search firm as “a description of John” in the negative. That is, they described what they didn’t want to see in a new superintendent, she said.

“Several said they wanted something different,” Geisberg said. “There’s an undercurrent that’s definitely there.”

But PTA Council President Laura Rosenbaum came away with a different view of the meeting.

Her “takeaway” was that the council wanted the district to maintain “a leading edge” so that “the children get the best education” and the “entire community is included in having a voice.”

“Everybody was very glad to be part of the process,” Rosenbaum said.

“We had a very healthy discussion,” she said. PTA presidents from the individual schools were “open and able to give their differing opinions.”

While Rosenbaum talked about an exchange of ideas at the meeting, Geisberg remembers more of a consensus for change.

“It was the first time I’d ever seen all the presidents agree” when they said they didn’t want another Deasy, she said.

Zivi recalled a similar experience.

“We sure were in agreement,” she said. “There was a real feeling of unanimity.”

More than one participant wished the board had chosen to conduct an open search, unlike the largely opaque one in which the board will make its final decision behind closed doors.

Haker was one of them saying he wished the process was “transparent, so the board doesn’t make a decision that doesn’t reflect the concerns of the community.”

Some stakeholders have speculated that the decision has already been made, and a number support it.

“Why not give Mike Matthews a chance,” said Jim Jaffe, a former labor negotiator for the Santa Monica-Malibu California Teachers Association who has been an outspoken critic of the district’s fiscal policies under Deasy. “He’s paid his dues.”

Jaffe added that there ought to be “a way to hire from within,” without spending $35,000 on a search.

The community will get a chance to find out just how accurately its views are represented when Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates makes its next presentation to the board, Thursday at 5:30 p.m. in the City Council Chambers at Santa Monica City Hall.

Earlier, at 3:30 p.m., the board will hold a workshop on open meeting laws in the district office board room at 1651 16th Street.

Both meetings are open to the public.