Snoqualmie Valley School District Superintendent Leadership Input

Chris, I respect your well articulated view on this, and agree with much of it, but just want to point out some exception. Yes, in an unusually politicized organization as SVSD admin is, as compared to a private corporation, there is a greater need to look “outside” the org for a new chief to run the show and answer to the board. I, too, would prefer to see that hire come from the outside.

Since so much of the impact of the “product” of SVSD affects nearly all of our community of taxpayers, parents, students, etc, a survey of what our community would like to see SVSD provide them is extremely important to the strategic planning of the district, which in turn *should* affect the hiring and on-going evaluation of the superintendent who implements that plan in his/her working relationship with the board of directors. In private corporations we call that “market research”, which should regularly be undertaken. SVSD has been regularly conducting such survey research over the years, unfortunately it seems to have historically been focused primarily on parents and staff and de-prioritizing the rest of the taxpayer community at large. I believe this reflects the internal and limited external politics of SVSD and parents. I would prefer to see outreach of such SVSD surveys to the entire community of taxpayers who fund them.

Creating a special and unusual survey on the topic of what the community would like to see in the new superintendent hire is in a way putting the cart in front of the horse. Evaluating the skills, knowledge, and previous track record of success/failure that is needed of a new hire in order to meet the supposedly up-to-date and well-thought-out strategic plan is something that should not drive the plan in the first place…that’s backwards. So, I’m a bit puzzled by what I’m reading here about this new survey, except if one believes that it may be intended to get a better fix on the external community political factors at play here; that is not necessarily a bad thing, but I submit should not be given much priority in the hiring process given how much improvement SVSD really needs to make and thus where the priorities need to instead be focused on. It even smacks of the politics surrounding re-election of board directors coming up. But, it’s not wise to hire a kumbaya party host leader because they’re liked for being a skilled in making everyone happy to shake up an organization that is in need of change…but offering this survey kinda smacks of that. Now, it could be that the board is hoping to tap into the hive brain of skilled and knowledgeable CEO hiring managers and management out in the community to supplement their lack of such skills and knowledge, which may be a good thing…but that is best done by prequalifying the survey respondents to weed out the politics and the inexperienced hiring manager wannabes. Think of it this way: many of us buy stuff from Amazon, but how much good would it do for Amazon to survey their customers on what they wish to see in their replacement CEO? Instead of what products, services and support you wish to see Amazon provide to you? Full disclosure: I have not yet done the survey (no link here), so I’ll be later assessing what they’re really wanting to learn from the community.

I also agree that SVSD can stand more improvement in terms of student academic outcomes and preparation for life after graduation, wider student population success, greater financial efficiency, and how that squares with taxes and other sources of revenue, teachers and their skills/knowledge/pro-dev, student to teacher ratios, etc. I agree with you that there is likely a need in SVSD admin and staff for an organizational change to put into place what is needed for that planned improvement. I also see in my past and present discussions with admin and staff that the politics around that is mixed, with a desire for “shake up” versus a resistance for such change internally. But a good chief with the right skills and experience can gain the balance of respect to affect organizational changes as well as changes in the goals of the plan without unduly alienating the needed admin and staff talent to make progress; in fact, I believe we were seeing that in Gibbon’s predecessor (Manahan) before he resigned over health issues. But, it’s not the community hiring that chief, it’s the board of directors.

I do not agree with what you are implying about firing over “cause”, perhaps I don’t understand what you are driving at there. In employment contracts, “cause” is a legal term that determines if any amount of termination compensation is owed when the organization fires an employee, and often it is zero. “Cause” needs to be clearly defined in order to be successfully defended in a lawsuit if it came to that, and if done properly can even be a big barrier to such a lawsuit being filed in the first place. But an employee always can be fired for any legal reason with little justification, but it is customary that kind of termination “without cause” is based upon unsatisfactory performance sufficiently defined to likewise be a large barrier to a lawsuit, and that there is a reasonable amount of termination compensation provided to the fired employee. Ie, just because Gibbon was fired without cause does not mean it should not have happened nor was not justified, as there is always reasons that someone is fired without cause, it’s common, happens everywhere all the time, sometimes with no separation compensation. However, it’s still best to define in the employment contract some important reasons for termination without cause, and define the separation compensation, especially if it involves a very highly paid employee. In this case, it would appear that neither the cause or without cause was well defined along with termination compensation, and that is a bad oversight in my view, therefore I agree with you on that point. I also do not believe that the public deserves any more information about this firing without cause, simply because such public knowledge has no relevance to the district’s improvement desired by the board, only the strategic plan does, which is highly available to the public.

This “coup” thing you’re talking about: a board should always be in touch with what is going on inside the organization that they have fiduciary and other responsibilities for. I see no problem in any board receiving input from the organization’s employees, whether managers or staff right “down” to the volunteers and students. Whether that input is proactively sought out by board directors, or unexpectedly brought to them. Unlike so many other school districts, we have here in SVSD an “active” board that is more involved in the district planning, on-going evaluation, correction, admin and staff discussions, and public communications. They are operating in a vacuum, which is a good thing. In the case of an internal group of managers and staff banding together to affect change in the organization, I submit that is also something that as a board director in my organizations I wanted to know about, as there is value in many heads group thinking that should not be discounted. It just needs to be assessed in the context of the strategic plan, what the hired chief is reporting and performing, etc. Most board directors do want such “rogue” reporters to also work through their management structure so that they can see what becomes of those ideas. Sometimes they are suppressed before it comes back to the board through the command structure they want it to (superintendent in this case). If it is a superintendent or other senior management failure being reported, then how else is the board to hear about it in a timely manner? Certainly not from the failing party(ies). From what I can see from afar here, it does look like the SVSD board did take the proper steps here to detect superintendent non-performance, put him on an improvement plan, and when he did not execute such plan then fired him without cause as needed. (separation compensation issue aside)

I don’t agree that “public outrage was brutal”. What we’re seeing here on this blog is a tempest in a teapot, as the community at-large does not find this matter very notable. Everyone I talk to just doesn’t seem to care and feels that the board was justified. So far, I’ve seen only one person write brutally critical in public, here, trying to stir up a pot over not being an elected director to participate in the firing decision, instead of the most important issues that affect our entire community of taxpayers, some of whom are parents, and our students.

With that said, I like what you’ve written here, Chris, I always find you thought-provoking, Chris, and most of what you said makes a lot of sense to me. Too few people in our community have the courage to start and participate in conversations about how one of the very largest tax burdens in our community should be operating and improving. Kudos to you for that.