Educator shares parents’ concerns

• By CHARLES LUSSIER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Mar 4, 2009 - Page: 1A - UPDATED: 12:10 a.m.

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If she’s hired to be the next superintendent of East Baton Rouge Parish schools, Bonita Coleman-Potter said Tuesday, she will be not only an educator but the mother of a young son enrolled in the school system.

“If I am afforded the opportunity, we will also be clienteles of yours, so the sense of urgency, I think, is greater for me,” Coleman-Potter told the School Board.

This veteran educator said she plans to stay in Baton Rouge for the long term.

“I’ve been in Jackson, Mississippi, my whole life, so for me to move here, this is a life-changing decision,” she said.

Coleman-Potter, Jackson’s deputy superintendent of instruction for three years, is the second of three finalists to interview for the position. She underwent a daylong interview process with a community luncheon, visits to four schools, a community forum and a board interview.

John Covington, superintendent in Pueblo, Colo., was interviewed Monday and John Dilworth, superintendent in Montgomery County, Ala., is scheduled to be interviewed today.

Board President Jerry Arbour has said he wants to make a decision tonight after Dilworth’s interview. But during the interviews with Covington and Coleman-Potter, Arbour asked each one whether they would be willing to host follow-up visits to their school districts, indicating he is thinking of delaying a final decision.

Coleman-Potter’s experience as a mother came through in many of her answers Tuesday.

A former middle school teacher, she said she’s been alarmed to see her 10-year-old son, Chandler, changing so rapidly.

“The child I thought I knew is not the child I have,” she said.

When asked about her passion for arts in schools, she returned to Chandler.

“My son is in the fourth year as a cellist, so I believe that it’s important for all children to have a creative outlet,” Coleman-Potter said.

From charter schools to magnet schools to collective bargaining, Coleman-Potter repeatedly said she would gauge all her endeavors by a simple judgment: “I’m very stubborn when it comes to children and we have to be to make sure they’re served well.”