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March 8th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Interesting that if Kendall Wallace is so involved in the community, and basing the idea that Jack should be superintendent on the fact that she is local and will be involved in the community, that they have never met. I am interested to know who the ’some’ are that are that feel Jack is stronger than Baehr in the area of curriculum. Did Wallace attend the interview? or did he just swipe the line that she is not looking for a job elsewhere from another blog that had info on it about the search?
March 8th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Good point about the process having been blocked. Perhaps if it had started last fall when they knew Baehr was leaving, we would’ve gotten a larger and/or better field of candidates. Hopefully the Mayor and everyone else knows who’s to blame for our late start and the outcome.
Re the SC: Does anyone know their bios? Specifically children and schooling. I would hope that they are all parents of children attending our public schools, otherwise they have no vested interest in the quality of our schools. If they don’t have kids in our schools, then we need to question their motivation for filling those seats.
Re Kendall Wallace, I really can’t understand his POVs. Some of his gems:
What is it with the residency requirements these days? Is this just a way for those in power to more easily get their friends, families, and neighbors some jobs for which their not best qualified?
Here’s a Q: Where do the “local favorites” (Jack & Schlichtman) live now? Are they born & bred Lowellians? Blow-ins? Commuters? Just because they work here doesn’t make them care any more or less than the others.
Here’s the other way to look at it: Why should we be interested in a candidate that nobody else has interest in? The fact that the other candidates are being pursued by other communities somehow validates their qualifications and marketability. Jack has probably done a good job, but her resume is a bit thin to make a leap that high up the ladder.
Wallace says Wendy Jack came here from NH school systems some years ago. So her coming to Lowell from NH makes her a leading candidate, but other candidates coming in now make them unfit? Seems a bit contradictory, no?
Perhaps that Jack & Schilchtman are not yet Supts would make them more likely to be malleable and ‘give-in’ to the demands of the SC, pols, and press. I suspect that the candidates who are already Supt already have some experience with the political b.s. that comes with the position, whereas these lesser-qualified local candidates most likely do not.
March 8th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Gee, now the SC is concerned that the City of Lowell is in competition for a good superintendent? Where was that concern months ago Regina???
Lowell is the 4th largest city in the state, not a place for on the job training. One criteria for the new superintendent is that he/she have experience as a superintendent in another community first!
I found it amusing that in the Sun’s bios of the candidates all of them had information exclusively dealing with education, except Dr Jack who we learned as a qualification is a marathon runner! I guess that’s important to KW and crew.
March 8th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Dear apParent:
Did you check out Schlictman’s resume and cover letter? Did you watch the interview on TV? He served on two school committees and was president of the school committee organization. He successfully swam in some shark-infested political waters while flying under the radar screen in Lowell. I wouldn’t be so fast to think he is less qualified than the two outsiders, and Scott hasn’t lead anything bigger than a 1100 elementary school district.
March 8th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
March 8th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
apParent,
The following link (what you were looking for)tells about the school committee and if they have children in the public schools as well as the city council. Maybe you will take from it the same thing I did that we need to start electing officials with an interest in our schools maybe not. Some seem to have just skirted the issue of where their kids go or went to school
http://www.stand.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=544&srcid=82&srctid=1&erid=11805
March 8th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
For anyone interested, Dick over at www.richardhowe.com did a great synopsis of each of the candidates. Here is the link http://richardhowe.com/?p=772
March 8th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
You can’t beat somebody with nobody. If you don’t want Kendall Wallace picking the superintendent, especially someone he hasn’t even met, a better case needs to be made for one or two of the other candidates.
March 9th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Dr. Jack still lives in NH. I think Derry. As somebody who taught at the High School, I would say she did a tremendous job reshaping the English department from maybe the worst in the school to one of the best. Her efforts as curriculum coordinator are difficult to gauge. She is dictatorial and unpopular– teachers have no voice whatsoever in the school, as the results of the MassTells survey will undoubtedly indicate in a couple of weeks. This should not matter much if the results indicate she has been successful, and I do not really know what the data says. Make no mistake, she runs the school.
March 9th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
The magic word in Sunday’s paper is “Samaras”.
March 9th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Wendy Jack for Superintendent…..Surprise, surprise. Why should she be looking for another job, when she has this one sewn up. You see who her backers are.
March 9th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Its nonsense like this that makes me sick of the way things happen in this town.
If the majority of our leading candidates get and accept offers elsewhere before Lowell SC even does their interviews, then I hope someone pushes to cancel this whole mess, appoint an interim Supt, and start a new search. SC screwed this up from the beginning by postponing (perhaps deliberately to force this outcome.)
March 9th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Trading Karla Baehr for Wendy Jack is like trading Josh Beckett for Eric Gagne. Then you pitch Gagne and keep Hideki Okaima on the bench, and Okajima signs a free agent contract with Toronto. Hello?
Has anyone talked to the people on the search committee? It’s obvious they didn’t like the woman from Boston - but surely they had opinions about the four candidates they interviewed. How did they rank the candidates? Did they have score sheets?
March 9th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
ap said:
Try this one on. Schlictman’s ambitious, and at least one other district is looking at him. If he doesn’t get the job, he’s probably out of here. The search committee liked him enough to declare him as one of four qualified to lead the district. The column makes the case that he’s untested, but the outsiders have never run a district like Lowell. Why don’t we test him? Make him the interim and see how he does. Start the search again in September, do it right, and see if he can win or lose the job based on his performance.