Blind Dates

So many thoughts come to mind prior to my Edna exit, and true to form, I express them here.  A metaphor that has always made great sense to me is the metaphor I use when interviewing and hiring professional educators whether they are teachers or administrators. 

The interview, the resume, the references are all like an arranged blind date with a written profile provided in advance.  Everyone puts their best foot forward on the blind date in hopes of impressing the other.  Current employees conducting the interview want the candidates to know how lucky they will be if they get hired here.  Candidates very much want to impress the interview committee so that they will have a job offer.  We waltz, we laugh, we shine, and we put on our best face.  We ask questions of each other.  We seek to determine if we are compatible, which is often folly because the candidate really will have no clue what it means to actually work here, and we will have no real clue what it means to work with the candidate until it happens.  We are both pretending to be something we may not be for the sake of this blind date.  Often after these blind dates we awake the next day married to each other, contractually bound, connected for the purpose of educating kids.

We will not know how this newly formed relationship will work until we are in it, day after day.  Is it a match made in heaven or do we discover that we do not fit?  Like most marriages, the honeymoon will end and we discover whether we are in a relationship that merits long term commitment and work, or is the core of the relationship so weak that we sever the tie that binds.  We do not know until we are in it.  As you know, we have hired people that resulted in a wonderful marriage.  Likewise, we have let folks go after a year or two when the effort to improve the relationship did not work out.  And some just left without working on the relationship to pursue their own agendas.

I have been married to Edna ISD for 14 years.  That is a long time for a marriage and it is a longevity record for a superintendent in Edna.  My application here and eventual employment here was a God thing.  I had applied for the superintendency in a coastal community southwest of here, and had been through two rounds of interviews when they offered me the job.  As I drove from the coast back to East Texas my guts were churning.  It did not feel right.  Something was amiss in the blind date and I was not sure I wanted to commit to that relationship in that system.  I had already resigned what was my current job because of an ethical conflict with that Board and I needed a job for my family.  I was in angst as I drove north on 59.  I opened my heart to help and insight.

I needed gas and saw an exit for Edna.  I did not know anything about Edna, I am not sure I had ever heard of it.  I exited and drove to the first gas station I saw, stopped and began to pump gas.  On the other side of the pump two men were chatting.  I heard one ask the other, “Who do you think they will hire as our new Superintendent?”  They continued to bemoan the turnover and instability in the system.  I interrupted them and asked if the schools here were looking for a supe.  They said yes.  I left the gas station and drove around town, saw downtown, saw the high school, saw the courthouse.  People waived, people smiled.  I called Debbie and asked her to get on line and see if Edna was searching for a supe.  She called me back and said yes, and the deadline for application was the next day.  I drove the remaining 4 hours to east Texas getting excited.  Once home I called Region 3, the search consultants.  I spoke for the first time with Dr. Julius Cano, now a trusted friend, who told me if I could get a letter of interest and a resume to him by the next day I would be in the pool.  I did.

A week later I was invited to an interview in Edna.  I drove the four hours back here and walked into the interview room in Sam Houston.  The first person I saw was a shock.  I had spent 3 years as a full-time doctoral student at Texas A&M and had the pleasure of taking classes from Dr. Victor Rodriguez, the former superintendent of San Antonio ISD.  Little did I know he was the interim supe here.  Victor recognized me right off the bat and he and I stood there having “good old days” conversations before I even met the Board.  Things were feeling more and more right.  I was growing more and more excited about this date.

I met Jose Rodriguez, Gerald Boyd, John Morrow, Alfred Rosa, Frank Respondek, Bruce Miller, and Tracy Santellana.  They questioned me and I them.  It was feeling right.  They called later and invited me back, and this time wanted me to bring Debbie.  We talked some more.  Jose called the next day and offered me the job.  That was in May of 1999.  They posted me as lone finalist, I made trips here to find a house, the Board hired me in June of 1999 and I arrived with wife and two kids in Edna, Texas and walked in the door of central office on July 2 for my first day on the job.  I knew no one.  I got lost twice driving to Carver.  It was scary and exciting.  That blind date turned into a long and fruitful marriage, and to this day I believe it was divine intervention that brought me here.

Over the years Board Members came and left: Vance Mitchell, Jewel Buchanan, David Loos, Jan Bone, Terry Miller, Patrick Brzozowski, Brandon Peters, Donnie Mac Long, and Brandon Curlee.  Each new member was someone I needed to establish a relationship with as the marriage was between me and the Board.  For the most part, each of those new members and I got along and the system moved forward and the marriage remained in place.  Our current Board is a very different group than the group that hired me fourteen years ago.  For the most part they inherited this marriage and did not participate in the blind date, courtship, or the formation of the marriage.  They arrived with a partner in place.  They were not as motivated to make the marriage work as the Board that hired me.  I remained committed to the relationship; though I think they doubted that at times.  The new members had no experience with long term professional relationships and got antsy.  Though the timing came as a surprise to me, the fact that the Board said to me on June 10^th that they wanted me to go was not a surprise.  The marriage was over.  They wanted new blind dates and a new professional spouse.

Unless they know something they are not telling me, the marriage is not ending due to some infraction of rule or law or misdeed on my part.  It is ending because the ideal structure of a superintendent / Board relationship is no longer working here, the Team of 8.  Rather than work on the relationship, we are divorcing.

State law and Board Policy pretty well govern how we handle dysfunctional professional relationships:  we identify problems, we document, we create a growth plan and give the employee ample time to improve, then we recommend divorce if all that fails.  That is not true for Boards and Superintendents, though perhaps it should be.  If the Board changes and wants someone new they can simply end the current relationship.  Yes, there are hoops to jump through to end that relationship, but a professional educator and lay board can solve such problems if they work in good faith.  I continue to work in good faith.

I am saddened by the end of this relationship.  It has meant a great deal to me.  I feel similar feelings that many do as a marriage ends.  I am most sad that my relationship with many of our employees has grown to feel like a marriage with mutual commitment, trust, honesty, hard work, openness and caring.  I really feel pain around the end of such professional relationships and trust that the friends I have made here will remain so.

We have worked on a settlement agreement, the Board and I.  It is now signed, our marriage is dissolved and the Board will initiate a process for a new round of blind dates.  I wish them good luck.  I wish you good luck.  I will miss you.  I hope that we will always have mutual visitation rights, though I have lost custody.

Thank you for allowing me to be your superintendent.  What an honor.  What a privilege.  What a great marriage it has been.  Now, I must polish my resume, get a haircut and a new suit to be ready for my own professional blind dates.  Where next?  I have no clue, but I trust in the belief that there is somewhere I am to be, working for kids, teachers and a community.  I will know when it is right.  Then I shall go there, commit, and seek to build a relationship and a system as I have done here. 

Yes, I prefer marriage to blind dates.