by Joe Wilhelm Jr.
Staff Writer
Charter Revision continues fact finding
One of the tasks of the City’s Charter Revision Commission is to examine what works and doesn’t work in the City’s Charter, and one of the areas they are looking at is appointed and elected positions.
The Commission hosted speakers Thursday who had experience with the Duval County School Board and asked them if the current structure of an elected school board and appointed superintendent was best for the success of the school system.
“Florida has the largest school systems in America. They also have the largest schools in America,” said State Sen. Stephen Wise. “The prime concern we have is about student performance. Research shows that there is no significant difference in student performance if the superintendent is elected versus being appointed.”
Wise also offered some insight on the issue from his years as an educator.
“I served under elected and appointed superintendents,” said Wise. “When you are elected the question is if the school board says they want this policy and if you are an elected superintendent, they can’t fire you. It creates an interesting confrontation between elected bodies.”
Currently, the Duval County School System is split into seven districts and each district has one representative on the School Board. It sets the policy for the district and the superintendent is charged with administering the policies set by the board. The superintendent is appointed by the School Board. The School Board and superintendent are responsible for over 150 schools which serve over 124,000 students.
The Charter Revision Commission has discussed whether or not elected positions should be appointed and if appointed positions should be elected. It could recommend a change to the City’s Charter, which currently allows the School Board to appoint the superintendent. There has also been discussion of splitting up the school district.
Former State Sen. Jim Horne talked about the advantages and disadvantages of an appointed superintendent.
“Clearly, in an appointed position, you can search through a nationwide pool of applicants,” said Horne. “But if you don’t have a strong superintendent, then you could end up having defacto superintendents on the school board who blur the lines between policy making and administration.”
Both speakers were in favor of an elected board and appointed superintendent, but Wise had some other suggestions for the commission to consider.
“There are no qualifications in the State of Florida in the Statutes (to be appointed as a superintendent). Bubba, who’s a peanut farmer, could be your superintendent of schools and never graduated from high school,” said Wise, who is the chair of the State Senate’s Education Pre-K-12 Appropriations Committee. “School board members in Florida are the highest paid in America. I suggested we make their salaries the same as mine, $28,000, and that didn’t go over real with them. As we began to structure the budget this year we came out with it’s got to be the same or lower than a starting teacher’s salary.”
The current salary for School Board members is $40,349, according to the Duval County Public Schools’ Web site.
356-2466