Thursday, the Rockford School District confirmed rumors which have surrounded Superintendent Sheffield for the past few weeks. The district and the superintendent have agreed to a mutual parting of the ways. LaVonne Sheffield will resign as of April 30, 2011, after less than 2 years at the helm.
The current board will approve the severance agreement at their regularly scheduled board meeting next Tuesday night. The agreement includes six months salary, which would be approximately $105,000, since the superintendent had signed a four year contract at $210,000 per year. She will also receive 3 months health care coverage and pay for unused sick days and vacation days per contract.
The new board hasn’t even been sworn in and must already run the gauntlet of decisions that awaits them – the first being the selection of an interim superintendent. The current board must allow the new members to make this selection since they will be ultimately held accountable for the interview process to select the district’s new leader.
A suggestion – select a superintendent who has local, permanent ties. Be wary of national search teams, who seem more interested in helping their clients find employment, rather than picking someone who is a good fit for Rockford’s diverse community and will invest in the area.
The district desperately needs continuity in leadership during the next few years with implementation of zoned schools, equitable distributions of resources in all schools and to consistently provide reliable financial data in order to operate the district in the most efficient manner with available funding.
Despite the appeals from some in the community to reverse what has been done thus far under Sheffield supervision to rightsize the district, changes in boundaries of the schools at this point and the corresponding reassignment of students will be difficult and disruptive to the district.
The reductions in force (RIF) has timelines which can not be bypassed due to state laws, which new board members are not yet familiar, including multiple certifications that must be considered, with tenure and seniority setting up the queue of layoffs. Those timelines will have passed prior to the swearing in of the new board members
Tweaking some of the recent principal’s reclassifications or reassignments may be a reasonable alternative but changes to the basic structure should be left intact so that cash reserves are not depleted in a couple of years, leading to forced borrowing once again to operate the schools.
Reinstatements of staff may occur after funding is realized during the summer, or enrollment stabilizes and class size requirements are determined, but current RIFs have followed proper protocol and must remain until the proper time.
Even though there may be doubts concerning the budget estimates, there still remains contract negotiations with the Rockford Education Association to obtain concessions of an estimated $11.6M in areas of pensions, health care premiums, lanes and steps and teacher assignments to prevent further cuts in programs such as Gifted and Montessori.
The new board has its work cut out for it. A good start will occur during the reorganization of the board itself after they are sworn in. Collaborate with each other. Discover your mutual interests. Let someone with experience assume leadership roles, at least this year, listen carefully and at all times remain open and transparent in your deliberations, especially budget development, to reestablish trust in the community which will be essential to move forward with the implementation of your new ideas.
Related posts:
- Maybe RSD205 voters need to elect the superintendent not the Board members
- How to fix our schools: A manifesto signed by superintendent Sheffield
- Superintendent Sheffield is absolutely correct to end high school seniors throwaway semester
- School budget Sheffield’s responsibility, with consent of the board of education
- Why the rush to cut the deficit – Why can’t the school district take more time?
It’s the Rockford Way – chase off anyone from outside city limits that tries to change the broken, failed way of doing things. Hire someone local with questionable qualifications, just because they have “strong local ties.” It’s safer that way, and Rockford continues its death march to irrelevancy.
The way Rockford does things NOW is broken. That’s what got Rockford in the dire straights it is in today. CHANGE and innovation is the only way out – and Rockford has proven time and time again that change and innovation do not exist in the current residents.
We need a national search conducted by professionals for the Superintendant job. There are good people out there looking for a new challenge. It\’s just a matter of taking the opportunity more seriously this time.
Denny H was a great choice for 205 Super Ted. His family has ties in the business community in both industry and retail, but you were on a BOE that wouldn’t even let him get to the final 3.
That was a huge mistake by the BOE you were on.
Who else local would you want at the helm?
I know some of the players locally, and some of them don’t deserve to be there, they were part of the problem makers in the past.
No offense to you for the comments I made. I have lived through this form of rhetoric (go local – then no action) for years and by the way our local so-called education leaders were behind the closing of VoTech, which was an enormous mistake.
Dennis Thompson as Interm and maybe pay him to mentor\train an internal candidate who shows the right apptitude for Management Leadership… Could be a Young Buck who may not have the State required Certification but could within a year or two… Especially if Rockford was smart enough to invest in sending then to Executive MBA Program or “proven” (although expensive) Mgt Development programs.
In fact considering Rockford Public Schools are a $350 Million dollar, 3,000+ employee big business… How about we identify a local team of 2-3 even 4 or 5 Top Guns to train for the future… Odds are a couple will end up getting recruited away because of fame, fortune or just a better quality of life then what Good Ole Rockford has to offer.
A good starting point would be Dr. Patrick Hardy and Cedric Lewis (if he can be talked into staying after the way the Witch Hunt groupies and Conspiracy fruit-cases treated him)…
Gotta be a couple Young Teaching Superstar’s that could take there proven skills and real-world experience in the school battle grounds and TEAM-UP up with 3-5 other Real committed Change Agents to lead Rockford Public Schools to GREATNESS that all true Education Pro’s in Rockford desperately crave for…
Count me as all in on Pursuing Local Talent for the top Mgt roles in our schools… To include training anyone well qualified yet falling short of what some believe makes you magically well qualified to lead a school District…. i.e That prized State Certification.
In fact, why just look at Top Guns with Superior Leadership potential currently in Education or in our Schools? If you buy into a 3-5 Top Leadership Team why not recruit from Local Corporation a proven Lean, Six Sigma Professional to finally bring private sector world class Mgt practices and desperately needed ERP – Enterprise resource Planning skills to Public School Mgt.
(or ask that Local Corporation to encourage their Top Guns to pursue a 3-5-7 year Leadership role in local schools and then return to the Private Sector career if desired)
Just maybe if we significantly upgrade the Public School Mgt Horsepower (i.e not knocking current Administration as many seem to want to do) the Taxpayers will have more trust in AND LISTEN TO THE PROVEN PROFESSIONALS WHEN THEY MAKE RECOMMENDATIONS OR OFFER THEIR BEST ADVICE…
or geez… Maybe even the School Board will want to seek out and listen to the BEST QUALIFIED recommendations made by the better qualified full-time Mgt Pro’s… Doesn’t mean the School Board would become a rubber stamp but just because of the superior quality work of the Full-time Education professionals… The School Board members would have little reason to ignore the Pro’s and go off dreaming up stuff on the fly… (or be held accountable by Voters if they didn’t listen)
Ok… Too long again… But come on something I’ve offered up has to have at least some merit.
@Mr. Wallace: You are windier than a bagful of farts. Noehere do you mention getting somebody who understands education and who can work with rank and file teachers, who knows what its like to be in the classroom. Why is that idea so repugnant to you?
Hey Big Bopper… Thanks for the Taunt… Is that the best you got?
Daaaa “Understands Education” do you think just maybe the other 100+ Education Pro (i.e far to incestual demonstrated by the laughable idea Edcation folks think they are the only one that can “Understand Education.”
? back at you oh wise one Big Bopper… How come in just about every other Profession it’s consider a good idea (and healthy) to have a diverse group of people in Key Mgt role?
Do you think just maybe some in the Education Profession might not be so egostically or get their head stuck so far up that dark hole they got it in?
I will agree, we should have a diverse group… That’s why I want someone at the top who has an educational background and who has spent some time as a teacher,.and someone who is local….because that is NOT what we’ve had. (Sheffield wasn’t a teacher; nor Thompson; etc)
So yes, let’s try something different: appoint a principal whose respected by teachers, someone who has worked his/her way up and who knows the community. THat would be diverse because that is not what we’ve had before.
I have a better solution Big Bopper. We need two people at the top of the food chain, with equal votes – one an educator and one an equivalent CFO or a board of education that are independent of the teacher’s union, to watch the spending of the educators.
I have only met a couple of educators that haven’t met a program they wouldn’t spend money on! Most educators don’t want to work in an envoronment that requires a limit on spending within the budget, like the rest of us do in the private sector.
Until there is a standard that has to be achieved, and that doesn’t mean all children will do so, until accountability and success is measured against that standard consistently, there is no way that an educator, by themselves, should lead this district and have control over the financial CFO.
Thompson wasn’t a teacher, but he turned the distrct around financially and educationally for awhile by administering discipline, that some educators thought was too harsh or against Sheffield who some teachers thought was too soft – can’t they make up their mind?
Under Thompson, the district went from borrowing $77M a year to surpluses – there weren’t $28 or $50M deficits to worry about and he wouldn’t have passed a $41M deficit budget using the reserves to pay for it.
As a taxpayer, I’ll take the businessman every time. You gripe if the supervisors come into the classroom for evaluation and you gripe if they don’t communicate with the teachers – which is it?
In my book it’s unfortunate that Thompson left us in the lurch with his move to Florida. So I do agree that we should find someone from here as I stated in the post. The search teams simply see that their clients get a shot at the job! But there has to be civilian control over the budget, IMO.
Yes, Thompson did do a good job financially. I’ll admit. We were about 2 steps from financial takeover when he came in. When I look back, maybe he couldn’t have done that without outsourcing. That was tremendously unpopular and it took a few years for the buildings to physically recuperate from that. I don’t hear much about that anymore, do you?
I loved Thompson when he cut off the free lunches and gave the cheese sandwiches until their welfare recipient parents filled out and returned the form. He was RIGHT! I loved when he quipped, about the sandwiches: “Grill it and everybody loves them”. I thought, “this is my kind of guy”!
I didn’t always agree with Thompson’s personnel decisions. He bought into the nepotism & cronyism culture downtown. He didn’t clean up the corrupt hiring practices. His people in HR were inept.
Thompson was a straightforward guy. He had a military seriousness about him. I never saw him smile or laugh. But Dr. T did acknowledge teachers and shake their hands. To be honest, When Dr. T was in there, I thought he was kind of a cold fish. But compared to Sheffield, he was Mr. Congeniality. Thompson knew that you had to “build bridges” with business and civic leaders. Sheffield didn’t try to build bridges; she blew’em up.
Thompson was excellent when it came to student discipline and that will be extremely important for the next Supt.. Administration and teachers must get back to the philosophy of getting the troublemakers out and give REAL consequences. We have got to protect the kids who are there to learn and we’ve got to let teachers do their jobs. Especially with huge class sizes; removing ineffective students from the classroom is going to be critical…And I don’t care how much state aid we get for a troublemaker to sit there and warm the seat.
So those are random thoughts on Thompson. I NEVER thought I’d miss him, but after the last 2 years, he seems like a saint. And what’s that tell you?
Ted, Two people at the top? That sounds like trouble to me… Maybe 3 but what happens when two people disagree?
Lastly, Most Private Sector Mgt Teams that are the really effective aren’t led by one all powerful Leader who tells everyone else what to do and makes all the decisions.
+ Why on earth would you want to ignore the talents of other Top Level Mgt personnel by telling them to just shut up and listen and do what the boss tells you to do… (holding them back or force them to leave the District)?
So instead of ONE all knowing czar of Public Schools, we need a proven Leader who can mobilize a diverse group of highly talented, very smart people in the pursuit of a common goal… TO INCLUDE EVEN WHEN THEY DISAGREE!
To me that’s the fundemental problem here in Rockford… We aren’t willing to hire the Best Possible People and then support (i.e. Trust) them in their efforts to deliver on the job.
Things seldom go exactly as planned… and most certainly we should expect mistakes to be made…
But come on, if we REALLY BELIEVE SERIOUS CHANGE IS NEEDED IN OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS… Can’t we please tolerate and accept some controversy is bound to happen and even some people may become mad as hell….
Yet are we prepared to accept the reality that this (controvery or people mad as hell) may be more of a good sign then a bad sign?
Sooo Two person Mgt Team… I doubt that is doable but hey just my opinion… Yet how about we look within (School district and surrounding private sector) and hire the best possible 3-5-7 Mgt Pro’s to run our schools… Let this Mgt Team select a Top Dog and then support the hell out this team… in good times and in bad.
FYI Big Bopper… I suggest this Mgt Team includes current Teachers as well as Principals or others “with real Classroom experience”… It’s not an end-all requirement for a Superintendent to have been a Teacher… You just need serious Top Level people who have with a key voice as part of the School District Mgt Team…
To summarize… All of the above doesn’t conflict with a School Board that makes the final call and approves most everything in the District… But unlike some who suggest we need the School Board to LEAD the way and pursue thier ideas…
In my opinion, we simply need to (insist upon) that the School Board Members DEMAND (and hold accountable) the better qualified Education Pro’s to come up with the the BEST IDEAS or BEST RECOMMENDATIONS for the School Board to (hopefully) approve…
To include providing BOE timely and well documented data and budgets to support what they ask the School Board to approve.
I’m not saying School Board Members aren’t smart and talented people… nor saying they don’t have good ideas or could work on coming up with some pretty good brainstorms…
Yet for those who want an activist BOE micromanaging and telling the better qualified full-time Education Pro’s what to do…
Commonsense says, The Full-Time Education Professionals are the BEST Qualified and should come up with the BEST Ideas versus the part-timers…
This isn’t a knock against the School Board Members but just stating the fact most all Board Members have Full-Time jobs\Careers so how on earth can we expect them to “out work” the better trained… educated…. experienced Education Professionals?
By the way those full-time Pro’s we are paying BIG BUCKS to manage our schools…
If we really believe the part-time BOE can come up with the BEST ideas then we got the wrong Full-Time Education Professionals on the payroll and gotta pursue upgrading the talent pool…
If we want local Talent to lead our School District… then we got to hire the Best… and then give then thier BEST chance at being successful.
Long rant sorry but Ted is right… There are lots of Good Ideas when it comes to spending School Tax Dollars…
But we gotta start looking for those good ideas that are simply better then others…
We can’t continue to afford the mentality “oh it’s a good idea so lets do it…