Seattle School Board Delays Vote On Interim Superintendent

The Seattle School Board has delayed a vote on whether to permanently hire Interim Superintendent Larry Nyland.

The vote was scheduled at a meeting Wednesday without any public announcement.

That’s in contrast to the board’s usual process when hiring a superintendent: a months-long national search followed by numerous community meetings with the candidates.

Last night Board President Sharon Peaslee moved to delay the vote by a week to December 10 in order to get more community input.

The board will hold a special meeting to vote on whether to kick off the contract negotiation process with Nyland.

Marcie Sillman spoke with KUOW education reporter Ann Dornfeld about Seattle Public School’s search for the next superintendent.

Sillman: Will you first give us some background on the Interim Superintendent Nyland? Who is he?

Dornfeld: Nyland had recently retired as superintendent of the Marysville School District.

He’s a product of Seattle Public Schools, and that’s something the community has been calling for – a superintendent with local ties.

He’s known as a collaborative leader, and one of his claims to fame is that as the new superintendent in Marysville he helped the district and teachers union get back on track after a nearly two month long teachers strike.

The school year in Seattle is only three months old though, and he hasn’t made any bold moves as superintendent here, so it’s hard to describe his leadership style in this city.

Sillman: Why do you think the board is moving to offer him the job rather than conduct the usual superintendent search?

Dornfeld: Board President Sharon Peaslee has said that Nyland is doing a great job and meets the qualifications that the community laid out last time the district looked for a superintendent a couple years back.

She says another national search this time would be expensive and time-consuming.

Sillman: How has that proposal been received in the community?

Dornfeld: Some parents and teachers are upset that the board didn’t go through a more open process.

Seattle Schools activist and blogger Melissa Westbrook was the one who publicized the board’s move to hire Nyland. She’s not a fan of the proposal.

Westbrook: I think they really wanted to do it under the radar and were hoping that basically they would just push it through and nobody would be the wiser in some ways. And that's just not the way to do it because I don't think there's anybody who would argue that Superintendent Nyland is not a qualified administrator. Is he the right fit for the district? Well, I guess we'll never know if we don't interview anybody else.

On the other hand, I don’t think there is widespread frustration because a lot of parents haven’t even heard about the proposal to hire Nyland.

And he isn’t a polarizing figure.

I went to a community coffee chat with the superintendent in West Seattle last night and there were plenty of questions from parents and teachers, but none on the subject of him becoming the permanent superintendent.

The president of the teachers union, Jonathan Knapp, told me that he considers Nyland a strong candidate and that a larger search wouldn’t necessarily result in a better superintendent.

But he said teachers would like more input in the selection process, so he has mixed feelings about the board’s move.

Sillman: What does Nyland say about the prospect of staying in the job?

Dornfeld: When I spoke to him last night, he said he’d like to provide the kind of stable leadership that the district needs.

But he said he’s not interested in being part of a candidate search.

Nyland: They've seen me for five months. That's more than you get to see a candidate. So I think both sides need to decide and move on to the next stage.

He gave an indication of the board’s reasoning for moving to hire him without public discourse.

He said the clock is ticking and that the board will need to start a candidate search soon if it’s to be complete by the end of the year. But again – count him out if that’s the case.

Nyland: If they're going to do a wider search they need to do that without my candidacy so they get a good representation of good candidates from across the country.

Of course, although Nyland said he wants to provide the stability and continuity the district has lacked in its series of short-term superintendents, he told me yesterday that he could only commit to another two years in the district beyond his current one-year contract.