The advisory committee charged with examining the principal/superintendent position at Oak Park and River Forest High School delivered its report to the Dist. 200 Board of Education Tuesday, suggesting in part that dual or separate positions is itself less of an issue than how the roles are defined and who serves in them.
The 28-person committee, established by the board in November to gauge community input, was not, however, asked to make a recommendation between one position or two.
Committee chair Richard Deptuch said after visiting five other school districts with an individual principal and superintendent within the past three months, it was clear that combined or separate positions were influenced by who served in each.
“We’re not sure if there is one right structure,” said Deptuch, a retired OPRF math teacher. “It really depends on the personality and style of the individuals who serve in the position or positions. What we’re recommending to the board of education is that you really look at this district and what this district may need. Are there deficiencies that need to be corrected? And if there are, can they be corrected in the current structure or does the structure need to change.”
The committee interviewed administrators, teachers and faculty from Evanston Township High School, Homewood High School in Flossmoor, Lyons Township High School in LaGrange, New Trier Township High School in Winnetka and Ridgewood Community High School in Norridge.
Each school has both a principal and superintendent. The committee’s 16-page report in part offered strengths and weaknesses for either combined or separate positions.
The board will make its decision concerning the position/s in about a month, said board President John Rigas. OPRF Superintendent/Principal Susan Bridge will retire after the 2006-07 school year. A search for either a principal/superintendent or two separate candidates would likely begin in the fall.
Oak Park and River Forest High School, as recently as the late 1970s and early 1980s, had split positions. Deptuch recalled that there were conflicts between the two at the time. Administrators interviewed at other school districts reported similar conflicts in previous years, Deptuch said.
He said that leaders in other districts pointed to decisions made by the principal that would be overruled by the superintendent and vice versa. The conflicts were so bad, in some cases, said Deptuch, that school community members would play one administrator between the other to get decisions made.
Those schools addressed the problem by specifically defining each role and hiring individuals to follow them accordingly, he said.
“There has to be a very clear delineation of who does what and it has to be clear to the community,” said Deptuch. “Everyone connected to the school has to learn what that identification of authority is.”
Rigas said such conflicts were an example of bad management but not cause for an argument against having separate positions for Dist. 200.
“That to me is a pure management issue,” he said. “In an organization like this, you should have a clear chain of command. If that does happen then we need to change the people in those roles and bring in ones who can manage the organization as designed. I think that’s a bad reason to say we shouldn’t do something.”
Several board members raised other concerns based on the report, including what role two separate positions would play with the board.
Deptuch said in many of the school districts visited, the principal rarely, if ever, sits in on board meetings unless required to. Community members also rarely if ever took concerns to the board, rather taking their concerns to the principal. The superintendent in many cases didn’t meet directly with parents but did meet with groups like the PTO or Boosters at those schools.
Dist. 200 board member Barry Greenwald questioned whether such a structure would fit OPRF.
“Any structure that increases the isolation of this board from the community that we serve would not be looked upon favorably by me,” he said. “Neither would I be in favor of any structure that creates administrators who are not accessible to the community that they serve.”
Committee members interviewed parents from other districts, who found it unusual that so many parents’ concerns in Oak Park were taken directly to the board here. Committee members representing groups such as the Citizens’ Council and PTO questioned their own constituents during this process.
Oak Park parents were concerned that split positions at OPRF would lessen their accessibility to administrators.
“There was a general consensus that they like the structure that allows them to have direct contact with the board,” said committee member Joe Hermes of the Citizens’ Council. “The parents in this district like the access they have with the combined position. There’s a sense of a public face that’s availability.”
CONTACT: tdean@wjinc.com