MCS superintendent search turns in a new direction
Seth Slabaugh
MUNCIE, Ind. — The school board is no longer taking the traditional path in its search for a new superintendent of Muncie Community Schools.
The board several months ago invited seven consultants to submit proposals to help it find a new CEO by mid-March, but four didn't even respond — apparently because of the short, mid-semester deadline.
At one time, the board voted to re-issue a request for proposals calling for a more traditional hiring date closer to July 1.
But since then, that plan has been abandoned in favor of finding a new leader through a process of networking with experts across the country (see list below).
►MCS launched superintendent search in November
The school board is tasked by state law with developing an innovative academic plan for MCS by June 2020 — and that calls for an innovative leadership search, says board President Jim Williams, a Muncie attorney.
The state Legislature, when it created a partnership last year between MCS and Ball State University, saw an opportunity to not only lift the financially and academically struggling school district but to also transform it into "a laboratory that was unique nationwide," Williams said in an interview.
"Those search firms didn't quite know how to wrap their minds around this model," Williams said.
"It's not a classic charter school model, in that charter schools usually start from the ground up and are relatively small," he said. "They don't start with 5,000 students like MCS."
"It's not a private school model, because MCS does have elements of public accountability that remain in place," he went on. "Nor is it a traditional public school, given the flexibility that has been granted to us by the state."
"So what we've done, in conversations with (BSU) President (Geoffrey S.) Mearns, is drafted a very thorough job description … under review by a number of folks around the state and country who are intimately involved in public education and know about this model created by the Legislature and are giving their feedback," Williams said.
After the job description is reviewed by the school board, "we have about five people we will share that with who will be giving us names of folks that they think would maybe be a good fit for the leadership position," Williams said.
Those individuals who have agreed to help MCS —one way or another —find a superintendent who is a good fit for Muncie include:
• Vince Bertram, president/CEO of Project Lead The Way, an Indianapolis-based national nonprofit organization that develops STEM curricula for K-12 schools. A former superintendent of schools in Evansville, Bertram earned degrees in education from Ball State and Harvard universities.
• David Shane, former K-12 education adviser to Gov. Mitch Daniels and former member of the Indiana State Board of Education who assisted former Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson in establishing the mayor's charter school board.
• Shirley Brice Heath, an anthropological linguist, is a professor-at-large at Brown University, and professor of linguistics emerita at Stanford University. Last fall, Heath received an honorary doctorate from Ball State, where she earned her master's in linguistics before going on to earn a Ph.D from Columbia University.
• Tom Luna, former superintendent of public instruction in Idaho.
"I spoke with Tom Luna," Williams said. "However, I would say it was simply an effort to reach potential school leadership pools and is not necessarily an endorsement of his public service tenure one way or another. He served in the early 2000s and his tenure was controversial in the same manner as many educational reforms that took root during that time period."
Mark Oppenheim, founder of a firm in San Francisco that does executive searches and recruiting for the non-profit sector.
"He has agreed to review materials for us as needed and to act as a sounding board," Williams said. "He was in Muncie in January doing a project for BSU involving community nonprofits including MCS. He is working on a film project using tapings done during that visit. Both (MCS attorney) David Day and I have discussed MCS with him at some length.
• Paul Reville, professor and founder of the Education Redesign Lab at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education, former secretary of education for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
In 2016, the lab launched By All Means (BAM), an initiative addressing the correlation between a child's socioeconomic status and his/her prospects for educational achievement.
Seven communities have joined the BAM consortium: Chattanooga-Hamilton County; Louisville; Oakland, Providence, the statewide Partnership for Resilience in Illinois; Salem, Mass., and Somerville, Mass.
"If you read about Paul Reville and what they are doing regarding the cradle-to-career model in communities that have socioeconomic challenges — that's similar to what we're talking about here," Williams said. "I'm slated to discuss this with Professor Reville next week."
The model includes "personalized systems of support and opportunity starting in early childhood and throughout a developmental pathway … while preparing them for success in higher education and careers."
Features include "whole-child" support of physical and emotional health; "student-centered, tailored learning," and "systems of opportunity" like access to preschool and summer school.
"When you get kids into your kindergarten and they hit the door having endured all sorts of trauma related to poverty and issues involving their caregivers, you can have the best teachers around … and it's still going to be a terrific challenge," Williams said.
Does ISTEP measure academic performance or poverty?
►ISTEP+ serves as loud 'wake-up call' for Muncie, ECI
Contact Seth Slabaugh at (765) 213-5834 or seths@muncie.gannett.com