Editorial: Community Should Not Let Small Minority Hijack School District

On Monday, Manatee County School District Superintendent Rick Mills announced his intent to retire from the position this July. Regardless of the reasons given, there seems little doubt that Mills' decision was a preemptive measure.

Mills has built an excellent record since taking over a district in shambles in early 2013. He and his team have restored financial stability to an organization that had been devastated by fiscal mismanagement. At the same time, academic performance also improved. Indeed, these last two years could be seen in many ways as a model turnaround of a school district in deep distress.

Nonetheless, Mills has made enemies in the community who have worked endlessly to see him and his team ousted. These forces have not proven themselves to have the best interests of this community or our students in mind. Instead, a small group of former administrators, current and former board members, other public officials and related interests seem more concerned with regaining influence over personnel decisions and control of the district's purse strings than anything related to education. Mills and his team are standing in their way.

Given the successes Mills can claim, it seems likely that he could write his own ticket going forward. Therefore, it should be no surprise if he does not wish to participate in the circus that seems to be looming on the horizon. The writing has been on the wall since the November school board elections. There are more board members who are working against him than there are supporting his leadership. They have the three votes to send him on his way and are clearly intent to use them, even though Mills' departure will make the district's ability to convince county taxpayers to approve referendums for multiple school-related tax increases it says it needs to properly fund public education all the more unlikely.

More than any other issue, the current school board has spent significant time since that last election being concerned with compensating and/or rehabilitating the reputations of members of the last administrative team. They have ignored nearly every single one of Mills' recommendations, along with the advice of their own board attorney and even that of Administrative Law Judges in order to attempt to absolve those ensnared in the sexual abuse scandal at Manatee High School.

In addition to gross negligence concerning the abuse of district students, those investigations also served to highlight the systemic nature of the school district's bureaucratic failures over the decade prior to its near collapse in late 2012. Among the troubling revelations, the community learned that the district had been riddled with unqualified administrators occupying high-level positions. Rather than conduct outside searches for the best talent in education, or even tap the considerable talent within the district, time and again, promotions were given to marginal employees whose chief qualification seemed to be their loyalty to preserving the status quo.

We also learned recently that this era was plagued by shady financial dealings regarding hundreds of millions of dollars in public debt for projects that may have been steered toward preferred vendors. In public administration, there is too often a direct relationship between the elevation of mediocrity and corruption. Those who have been given a professional station that had otherwise been far beyond their reach, are all too often willing to go along to get along once they are in a higher tax bracket. There seems to be an obvious effort on behalf of certain interests in this community to clear the playing field, so to speak, and we fear it is so this district can once again be at the mercy of weak administrators who are all too happy to do the bidding of their benefactors.

As we saw with the scandal at Manatee High, there are far greater consequences to incompetence than is often imagined. Senior administrators, investigators, principals and assistant principals are ultimately responsible for much more than just good stewardship of the taxpayers' financial investment. They are responsible for the safety and welfare of our children. Having less than the best qualified personnel in place is criminally irresponsible, and this community should demand more of those we entrust as stewards of our young.

It also seems clear that the bulk of Manatee County citizens are quite content with the turnaround this district has enjoyed over the past two years and are eager to see that progress continue going forward. It would be a shame if a county of more than 330,000 citizens allows a few dozen self-interested operators to hijack that success and turn a half-billion dollar a year enterprise – the largest employer in Manatee County – back into a political fiefdom that puts patronage above principle. However, unless they act to demand more of their dysfunctional school board, that seems to be exactly what will happen.

It is often said that while we do not always get the government we want, we very often get the government we deserve. If citizens accept a return to the old ways of doing things at Manatee County Schools, they will have no one to blame but themselves when they are met with the same old results. Only this time, it will be much harder to find someone willing to come in from the outside and clean up the mess for a community that largely stands by silently while such injustices occur.