Tucson Unified School Board member Mark Stegeman, who was the lone no vote when the governing board voted 4-1 to hire Ector County Independent School District’s interim superintendent H.T. Sanchez. And of course with that kind of decision making, Stegeman issues a letter to his constituents, which you can read below the cut:
June 20, 2013
Dear supporters and correspondents,
As many of you already know, on Tuesday the TUSD Governing Board voted 4-1 to appoint H.T. Sanchez, the interim superintendent of schools in Ector County, Texas, to be TUSD’s next superintendent. I spent most of the past few days, between the board’s decision to name him the sole finalist and Tuesday’s vote, studying his record and talking to people here and in Texas.
I cast the dissenting vote on Tuesday for various reasons that have mostly already been discussed in the press. Dr. Sanchez has switched jobs and districts frequently, including numerous lateral moves. (He also, last year, pulled out of one superintendent competition after being publicly named as a finalist.) Partly because of the many moves, he has no clear track record of success or failure, and he has only several months experience as an (interim) superintendent. His current Ector County district is smaller than TUSD, though growing because of local economic growth, and it differs from TUSD in important ways (e.g. no K-8 schools, no significant competition from charter schools, no statewide adoption of the common core). Student achievement in Ector County, as measured by Texas’s standardized tests, has recently been low and declining, though this surely has many causes and it would be unreasonable to blame much, or perhaps any, of this performance on Dr. Sanchez. Finally, the TUSD community encompasses diverse religious viewpoints, and many persons have said that the extent of the religious references during last week’s public forum made them uncomfortable.
TUSD followed the original fast timetable for announcing the superintendent decision, but we did not use all of the days that had been reserved for additional visits and forums. Hicks and I both expressed our concern, prior to last week’s 3-2 vote for a single finalist, that we brought only one candidate forward to meet the public. My preference, on Tuesday, would have been to postpone the decision and consider options.
Many persons have correctly pointed out that the final decision belonged only to the board (it is not a community “vote”), but the board benefits greatly from the informed and thoughtful input of TUSD’s families, employees, and taxpayers. I am grateful to the many persons who took the time to send comments to the board and to me personally. Some of the comments raised points that I had not previously considered.
From this point forward, it is important to draw a line under these concerns and to give Dr. Sanchez our full support.
Reasons for optimism.
From what I can see, Dr. Sanchez is intelligent, energetic, creative, and — very important for TUSD — willing to drive change. He clearly has some strong supporters in Ector County, who would argue that his aggressive moves to improve Ector County schools will produce results over time. Dr. Sanchez has emphasized that before developing his agenda for TUSD he wants to listen to the board, the staff, and the stakeholders. That is important and does not always occur with new superintendents. He has the outsider’s advantage of arriving without (apparent) loyalties to people in TUSD or in Tucson generally, so that he can assess the situation without preconceptions.
For these reasons, and if he spends time gathering information and analyzing TUSD’s complex circumstances before making major decisions, Dr. Sanchez has the potential to be an excellent superintendent. I will offer him my full support through that process and ask the community, including his skeptics, to do the same.
It will be important for everyone to remember that Dr. Sanchez is (obviously) not responsible for any of TUSD’s existing shortcomings, which can be fixed but in many cases neither easily or quickly. He starts with advantages inherited from Dr. Pedicone’s administration, including improved test scores, an improved IT infrastructure and bus system, the near-completion of a major round of school closures, and greater clarity in the desegregation case following February’s court order.
Each member of the board makes a unique and useful contribution to district governance and I expect the board and Dr. Sanchez to form an effective team. Sometimes changing one member of a team creates an opportunity to make it stronger.
The contract.
The last step in the process will be to negotiate a contract. In general, I think it makes sense to negotiate the contract before making a strong public commitment to a specific person, but the pattern of negotiating the contract after making the commitment fits TUSD’s historical pattern.
I will advocate for a contract that is simpler and more transparent than TUSD’s recent superintendent contracts and includes incentives not to leave early.
The search firm.
I think that the search firm, PROACT, did a good job, and I would be comfortable using the same firm again (with some adjustments to the process). The timing of the search surely affected the applicant pool, because many successful sitting superintendents would not enter a process that would require leaving their own district with very little warning or in the middle of the academic year.
PROACT’s handbook on searches says, “The ideal is for the outgoing superintendent to announce his or her departure just before or just following the Christmas holidays. This provides the board with a good six months to conduct the search, select and negotiate a contract with their new superintendent, and plan a smooth transition prior to the traditional July 1 start date.”
Nonetheless, we did get (as previously reported) 67 applicants, including some strong applicants.
Thank you for your interest in TUSD. As always, my comments reflect my own views and not those of the district or the board as a whole.
– Mark
This article appears in Jun 20-26, 2013.
Mark. Can’t wait to defeat you the next time you seek reelection.
I’m not sure I understand Stegeman’s comment:
“Finally, the TUSD community encompasses diverse religious viewpoints, and many persons have said that the extent of the religious references during last week’s public forum made them uncomfortable.”
If Sanchez was not disrespecting anybody else’s religion or viewpoints concerning religion, then I’m not sure he has a legitimate complaint, though I did not attend the public forum. I think it is more reflective of Stegeman’s pedigree—university professors are known for feeling very uncomfortable with people who reference their faith publicly. While I wouldn’t publicly make comments with religious connotations, I recognize that Sanchez has a right to discuss his religious viewpoints/motivation as it seems to be salient to how he approaches his work, and perhaps why he has moved around to different jobs.
Stegeman also said: “This isn’t a good district for losing your training wheels,” he said.
TUSD has bigger problems than Sanchez fitting in. Hundres of thousands, maybe millions, were lost by unscrupulous workers in the supply department selling things like electronic white boards. TUSD has wasted millions busing kids around its ludicrous boundaries, from one side of the city to the other. The district is too big and is basically a massive strip of land from one side of the city to the other. TUSD needs to be broken into two school districts. During the school closure process Pedicone had little, if any, familiarity with schools on the eastside of town, and the eastside of town had far too many schools closed when some westside schools with few students and D ratings were left open. There is too much politics, drama, graft, and theft at TUSD, and it is because the district has become too big to govern properly!
According to some, Stegeman is always wrong and is always a racist. I think, however, we should consider that his letter aims toward reconciliation and moving forward. Those who refuse to forget will never forgive him but others might consider prioritizing students’ education and needs. We should all be supporting the new superintendent. He is going to need everyone’s help.
I knew that the board viewed the school closures, completed under the last board, as a major positive moving forward, at least in terms of the budget. As Stegeman writes:
“He starts with advantages inherited from Dr. Pedicone’s administration, including improved test scores, an improved IT infrastructure and bus system, the near-completion of a major round of school closures, and greater clarity in the desegregation case following February’s court order.”
TUSD was anticipating just a 1% attrition rate due to the school closures. It might be much higher than that. Tucson isn’t like other states which have had to close schools in that there are a large number of charter schools, and the Catalina School district is full of “A” rated schools, a rarity in TUSD. Meaning that there are choices for parents who demand the best for their kids, or at least want to escape TUSD’s lunacy.
I love TUSD’s teachers, but I *hate* that Pedicone has attacked the parents who have kids in the district. He complains that the voters didn’t pass a bond measure that would have given something like 50% of the money to administration! Hello? Did he really think that so much money would be given to TUSD if only half of it went to the classroom? Pedicone wined and complained that people where standing around clapping for TUSD to fail.
TUSD’s wouds are self-inflicted. The district has wasted money bussing students, and the fight over MAS is pure lunacy. I would guess that most Latino parents, and white parents, wouldn’t want their kids attending classes, (or even a school), where hatred of others is taught. You don’t want your kid growing up think that they are constantly being victimized, though obviously many politically active adults would want kids to start thinking this way as this is how they make their living: expounding upon, and exaggerating, perceived victimization of specific peoples.
From the other side of the spectrum you’ve got Tea Party folks talking about how the government and IRS abuses and marginalizes them. Should white kids across the country take hate hate classes discussing how Eric Holder breaks the law and attempts to disenfranchise white people? Why in the world would TUSD think that it is OK for Latino students to attend hate classes via MAS?
It shows you that the folks running TUSD, and MAS advocates haven’t grown up yet, and don’t care about producing intelligent and productive future citizens.
If you want to make something for yourself, your best bet is the Catalina Foothills school district, or taking AP/Gate classes at TUSD and avoiding the haters like the plague.
If you want a change in the policies of the TUSD Board, I will be a candidate in 2014.
Check me out: http://www.sciencedigest.org
I sure hope this guy aint dirty.. What can be worse than a dirty sanchez in our city’s schools?
on the face of it, Mr Stegeman’s letter is clear, concise and I believe very forthright. As a former president of a local school board, I assess his case as one that has stated the facts clear and unbiased, and accept his analysis at face value. Sanchez is here, in and authorized by all to move forward, and that’s that. All involved should understand the past is the past, it’s yesterday’s news, and we start Monday morning, fresh and go forward. Tabula raza – clean slate. I don’t know much about the history of the squabbling and don’t care, what matters now is = forward march.