School District No Closer to Finding Superintendent

It's been six months since the Manatee County School Board became aware that former superintendent Diana Greene would be leaving for the same position in Duval County. She's now been gone four and a half months, but an update Tuesday showed that the district has made no progress in terms of moving forward in its search for a permanent replacement.

Hanging in the balance of Greene's departure was what could have been an impactful election, with three incumbents facing challenges in August and/or November. In the end, however, only one seat changed, with former Bradenton City Councilman James Golden defeating John Colon. There has also been the matter of the district's escalating ERP scandal, in which tens of millions of dollars have seemingly been wasted on a software system that still does not work properly, despite coming online more than a year and a half behind schedule–on the very first day after Greene's departure.

In June, the board voted to install Cynthia Saunders–Greene's top deputy at the time–as interim superintendent. However, Saunders' ascent came with the contractual caveat that she couldn't "apply for or accept appointment as the new Superintendent," ostensibly for fear that it could dissuade other applicants from pursuing the position.

Saunders, who followed Greene from Marion County when she came to be a deputy superintendent herself in 2013, has now been in the interim role for nearly five months. It would be very difficult to argue that she hasn't done a good job of keeping a great, big, leaky ship afloat through a major scandal she inherited, followed by the opening of a new school year that saw mass chaos as a result of the ERP system's many failures.

It should be noted that Saunders was previously the deputy superintendent of instruction and had nothing to do with the ERP project. That fell to Ron Ciranna, the deputy superintendent of operations, who has since "retired" while on suspension, pending an investigation over unauthorized expenditures related to the project.

On Tuesday, the board entertained talk of reconsidering the aforementioned clause in Saunders' contract, so that she might consider applying for the role permanently, with outgoing board member John Colon going so far as to endorse her as the best candidate for the position. The rest of the talk centered around whether the board should take a more long-term view of the process and develop a strategic plan for the district that would guide them in finding the right candidate, or move forward more quickly so that the new superintendent could have input on the plan.

Two members were most vocal in their preferences. School board chair Scott Hopes, who was elected last week to the seat he had initially been awarded in a vacancy appointment, favored developing a plan first. Charlie Kennedy, who was re-elected to a second term in August, advocated for hiring a superintendent that would then be involved in that process. The board will convene on the 20th of this month to seat Golden and elect a new chair, both of which could impact the process.

Board members and the community, however, will have to consider that despite a sub-tropical climate, no state income tax and a state-leading investment in funding for public education–with both an extra mill and an optional sales tax in place–the district's many woes have nonetheless made it an unattractive job for the short list of those qualified to lead such a large enterprise.

If a battle-tested superintendent like Saunders is interested in the post–and there's been no public evidence thus far that she is–it would be wise to at least consider her, if only because finding someone better qualified who actually wants the job might prove more challenging than one would expect.