Rushing to make important decisions usually leads to unintended and unwanted consequences.
Sometimes haste is unavoidable, such as when the federal and state governments responded to the COVID pandemic in 2020. There were problems, some of which could have been avoided with better oversight, but rapidly creating robust safety nets to sustain the multitudes who lost their jobs vastly outweighed any downsides.
However, when conducting a nationwide search for the superintendent of a troubled urban school district with more than 20,000 students and 47 school buildings, careful examination of both the district’s needs and the candidates’ qualifications is imperative.
When Akron’s school board chose the previous superintendent in April of 2021, only one of the two final candidates had any superintendent experience – Akron native Sandy Womack, Jr., who was, and remains, one of six regional (assistant) superintendents of Columbus City Schools.
But the school board instead hired the candidate with no prior superintendent experience, Christine Fowler Mack. Nineteen months later, Fowler Mack resigned and her nearly half million dollar severance package revealed just how eager the board was to part ways with someone they’d only recently hired.
Was a lesson learned? That is what a rabbi once asked one of my sons when he confessed to lying about an altercation with another student. Learning from mistakes cultivates not only intelligence, but discernment, an essential component of wisdom.
Many of the current members of the Akron school board were involved in the hiring of (and break up with) Fowler Mack. Ignoring calls from across Akron to choose the next superintendent after this fall’s elections, in which three of the board’s seven members must run for reelection, this spring the school board announced their plan to seat the next superintendent this summer.
By the June 5 application deadline, 23 candidates (of which nearly half were from Ohio) had applied for the position, including Mary Outley, the district’s interim superintendent. Outley has been the district’s executive director of elementary education since 2004.
On June 9, the school board president, Derrick Hall, told the Beacon Journal that he had been too busy to give more than a cursory glance at the candidate list (he was on military leave).
And yet less than a week later, the list had been winnowed to just seven candidates. Of the seven, only two are currently superintendents, Charlie Smialek of Parma City Schools and Kenny Rodriguez of Grandview (Missouri) C-4 School District. (While an important role, interim superintendent experience, which Outley now has, is not the same as being fully vested to run a district.)
Many school districts have just three buildings – one elementary, one middle and one high school. In such districts, the principal of one building may have the experience and skills to become superintendent of the district.
However, to assume someone who has never been a superintendent or assistant superintendent – or even someone in charge of a small district – could competently address the overwhelming challenges Akron’s schools face – from poverty, to discipline, to low attendance and literacy rates and much more – is pure folly.
Besides Outley, the other Akron Public Schools’ administrator on the list of seven was Larry Johnson. Johnson is the district’s supervisor of secondary schools. Previously, Johnson was principal of Firestone High School, where he was well liked by students, parents, faculty, staff and me, as my third son was a Firestone student during Johnson’s tenure.
A few days after the list of seven was announced, the district’s teachers’ union endorsed Johnson. As much as I respect Johnson, like so many on that list, he lacks the experience to become Akron schools’ next superintendent.
On June 21, the school board cut Johnson, along with Smialek and Rodriguez, from the list, leaving just four candidates to choose from, none of whom are currently superintendents or assistant superintendents.
Underscoring the school board’s questionable judgement, one of the four candidates previously had been filmed and investigated for alleged assault and battery of two high school students – neither of whom filed charges – in the district where she worked. Luckily for Akron, that candidate withdrew her application.
Days later, the school board offered the job to C. Michael Robinson Jr., who is currently the chief academic officer of East Baton Rouge Parish School System in Louisiana. He was previously the superintendent of Pine Bluff School District in Arkansas, which, with 3,800 students and 10 school buildings, is roughly one fifth the size of Akron Public Schools.
Pine Bluff’s schools hired Robinson in 2016. Two years later, and a year before his contract was set to expire, Robinson asked to be let out of his contract. The Pine Bluff school board approved his request and Robinson left the district with a severance payment of $50,000 (his annual salary was $155,000).
APS superintendent search:Board selects C. Michael Robinson Jr. as district’s next leader., spokesperson explains why he left previous job
It is clear that the school board of Akron Public Schools has not learned a lesson.
What Akron Public Schools needs is a strong superintendent who can foster substantial, significant and systemic improvements to how the district operates and educates.
Which begs the question, why did the school board rush the process and hire a candidate who any reasonable observer would realize is not qualified for such an important and difficult position?
The optics and the history of this hire, along with the hiring of former superintendent Christine Fowler Mack, point to a school board that wants a superintendent who won’t give them pushback.
Bluntly put, they want a weak superintendent they assume they can control.
And just how did that work for them last time?
This column was first published in the Akron Beacon Journal on Sunday, July 9, 2023.
Whoopsie Piggle 