What Jacksonville needs in a superintendent

Our new superintendent needs to believe in three things, have one and bring one with him.

They must believe in rigor. Jacksonville is a district filled with social promotions, kids are passed along all the time without the skills they need, barely learning anything along the way. Our classes must be tough and mean something because if not what is the point. It will teach our kids a work ethic and that there are both good and bad consequences for not having one.

They must believe in discipline. Discipline can be hard but we must not run from it. If a kid acts up they must receive a consequence for their actions and remember a consequence means something. A day home or a period with their friends in ISSP are not consequences.

They must believe teachers are valued resources, somebody to be collaborated with and not dictated too and they should be supported not browbeaten and cajoled into ignoring discipline and rigor. The morale of our teachers is so low they can’t do their job effectively. So many are just playing out the string or preparing their exit strategy because the district treats them so shoddily and refuses to discipline kids.

They must have patience. This school board allowed Pratt-Dannals to run our school system into the ground and it will take us years to recover. We can continue to slide into the abyss or we can start doing things the right way and crawl out but it will take us years and a lot of pain to do so.

Finally they must have suitcases. Pratt-Dannals had a habit of promoting his sycophants and cronies to principal and district positions and they in turn promoted their sycophants and cronies. So many are truly terrible it makes the good ones suspect, as they are guilty by association. Our new superintendent should have at most very limited ties to the area.

Rigor, discipline and teacher buy in are things we could do for free. A superintendent to run our system is another thing, to clean up this mess someone is going to want to get paid.