Get outside system for administrator

Now that the Governor has suspended Randy Acevedo from his job as Monroe County Schools Superintendent following his arrest and indictment last week, our school board should insist on nothing less than a non-familiar face to fill his shoes.

Most onlookers expect that Acevedo’s tenure as superintendent is forever over and that the one chosen to fill his shoes will do so until the voters can select another superintendent in the 2010 general election cycle.

That gives the system more than a year under someone else’s tenure to begin righting the ship that now lists seriously in the wake of the ongoing financial scandal.

The school board cannot be guaranteed that an in-house replacement won’t be part of the culture of permissiveness that led it to the misery it finds itself in today. Anyone in upper management in the school district must be looked at as part of the problem, even though there are dozens of dedicated educators.

And we know that some of them are probably right for the job, we just can’t afford the chance that they’re part of the culture that brought us to this point.

Local educators who believe they are right to lead the school system into the next decade will have that chance in 2010 when the job comes up for grabs again at the polls.

Until then, the school board should be lobbying the governor to reach far outside the local school system to someone with solid education credentials and a proven track record for fiscal responsibility.

The board and Acevedo have repeatedly butted heads over personnel decisions as the district office, and higher salaries that go with those jobs, has suffered very little in the way of budget cuts. In today’s economy, with a falling student population, most fiscally responsible minds turn to replacing lost teachers with district personnel, thereby cutting higher salaries and keeping education focused on the children.

We have seen proposals to cut teachers, but very little in the way of cutting district staff, despite the school board asking for such cuts for the last three years.

Perhaps it will take an outside educator not beholden to the nepotism and friendships of the current administration to at long last begin looking at cutting from the top instead of from the bottom.

We can be assured that an outside administrator won’t ignore the wishes of the board in keeping a rein on finances.

But, perhaps now is the time for the school board to make another attempt at replacing the elected superintendent with an appointed superintendent.

Voters have turned down that proposal in the past, leading to a top administrator answerable to no one but the governor, with powers that completely tied the hands of the school board in trying to tighten up spending. They could refuse to adopt a budget out of line with expenses, but had little power in dictating where those cuts must occur.

A superintendent appointed by the school board would be answerable to the officials elected by the voters to make decisions about running the school system on a financial level. It would become the job of the top administrator to carry out the intent and the spirit of the board’s directives instead of just making gestures to reach a bottom line they couldn’t enforce.

And while they’re at it, now is the time for the board to do a review of contract personnel, eliminate those positions where a classroom teacher would be of more use and return those qualified to the classroom, as well as to overhaul the financial accountability systems.

All of that is a tall order for our school board. If they can accomplish nothing else, at least they should start with a strong show of support for someone outside the school system to take over the temporary job as top administrator.

The time to right the listing ship is now.

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