Schools K-12

In its quest to select a new superintendent of the Detroit schools, the school board is receiving increasing pressure to start the process all over again. Community activists and several board members, including board President Jimmy Womack, have criticized the search process. Even the city council has advocated reopening a national search.

 

The Detroit schools search committee has narrowed the search down to three finalists, recommending Connie Calloway be offered the position with a four-to-one vote. If the board agrees, Calloway will have beat out the current superintendent, William Coleman III, as well as Doris Hope-Jackson, a board vice president of the Harvey School District 152 in Illinois.

 

Calloway’s credentials include an extensive curricular background, a no-nonsense style, and strong leadership skills. An educator for about 35 years, Calloway currently heads a 5,700-student school district in Normandy, Missouri, a position she has held since 2004. Previous to that, she served as director of a charter school in Dayton, Ohio; as superintendent of a small Ohio public school district; and in various roles as an administrator over curriculum and testing, a school principal, and reading specialist.

 

Calloway further brings to the Detroit schools a doctorate in administration, curriculum and instruction from Ohio University, a master’s degree in reading from Harvard University, and a bachelor of science from Sarah Lawrence College.

 

Tyrone Winfrey, a member of the search panel, recently visited the former and present work locations of the various candidates under consideration. He believes that Calloway definitely has the skills to be successful as superintendent of the Detroit schools, even though it is larger than her current district.

 

Activists working against the panel’s recommendation questions how the Detroit schools board could possibly move forward with two of the three finalists leading districts that are much smaller than the Detroit schools. Others feel a national and proper search not only was conducted but concluded with three viable candidates.

 

President Womack disagrees. An ex-officio member of the search committee, Womack said he could not support any of the finalists. He also does not believe any of the candidates has garnered a majority of stakeholders support. Though Womack noted that the three finalists have the skill sets to be superintendent of the Detroit schools, he believes that a successful candidate will require support of more than just the school board.

 

The new superintendent will take charge on July 1 of this year. Coleman’s contract expires in June.

 

The Detroit schools is a struggling district with 120,000 students. It is still besieged with plummeting annual enrollment, a fiscal crisis that caused the Detroit schools to borrow $200 million, a recent 16-day teacher strike, and just recently ended the state’s takeover of the district. This elected school board is choosing its first superintendent since coming to power.

 

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