School survey reveals conflicts

• By CHARLES LUSSIER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Jan 5, 2009 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Tensions between those who want wholesale change in public education in Baton Rouge and those who want to expand on the strengths of the current school system are vividly displayed in responses that more than 400 locals gave to a recent superintendent  search survey.

“What we have is obviously not working, so I see no reason for any remnant of the current system to remain,” observed one dissatisfied parent who filled out the survey. “Students get more instruction on how to wear their pants than on core skill sets,” she said.

By contrast, one local teacher, a veteran of previous shakeups, suggested that some changes can do more harm than good. That person wanted the next superintendent to have the “ability to look past something that’s shiny and new to see its true worth.”

Before Thanksgiving, 424 people filled out survey forms, both online and in person, and detailed the qualities they want to see in the next East Baton Rouge Parish school superintendent. Current Superintendent Charlotte Placide, who was promoted from within the system to that position in 2004, is retiring in June.

Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, the Glenview, Ill.-based search firm that sponsored the survey, said that it had never had so many people fill out such a survey before.

Hazard, Young, Attea has already read through the surveys, as well as dozens of interviews with school officials and community leaders, to compile a “leadership profile” that it is sending to recruits. The firm plans to present three finalists to the parish School Board in early February.

Overall, the search firm found, unsurprisingly, that Baton Rouge area residents want their new superintendent to be a proven leader with a record of turning around failing schools and prior administrative experience in a school system. While the search firm did a fair job summarizing the results, its leadership profile lacks the color and the passion of many survey responses.

For instance, one teacher upset at what he considers rampant misbehavior among students suggested that “Nobody should have to put up with what is going on in our classrooms.”

Most of the responses came from people from the “community,” followed by “parents” and then “faculty.” Most of the responding parents appeared to have children in the magnet program and gifted program. Parents of the tens of thousands of children not in those programs were much less represented.

Also, in short supply were the voices of students. Only two students filled out surveys. In its leadership profile, the search firm apologizes for this shortcoming, saying it had planned a session with students, but it fell through due to scheduling problems.
Many people said variations on the same things, though with different emphases.

One woman, who identifies herself as a member of the “community,” sums many when she says the following: “We need someone who is passionate about children’s needs, fair in holding teachers and principals accountable, not primarily interested in his/her own political and career advancement.”

The format of the survey irked some respondents.

“This survey was constructed in the most confusing and inefficient manner to which I have ever been exposed,” responded one community member.