Luring a top superintendent may be difficult for Pinellas
The Pinellas School Board will meet Tuesday to discuss how they should replace retiring superintendent Howard Hinesley.
By THOMAS C. TOBIN
Published June 16, 2003
Like every other issue the Pinellas School Board has touched lately, the search for a new superintendent is headed in one direction.
For a time last week, the task seemed easier when deputy superintendent John A. Stewart pulled himself out of contention for the job, allowing a divided board to focus on a national search.
But as board members meet Tuesday to decide how to replace superintendent Howard Hinesley, they face an unusually difficult marketplace.
A severe shortage of superintendent candidates nationwide is getting more acute each year, and fewer administrators are willing to tackle the growing problems facing large urban districts such as Pinellas, say professionals who conduct superintendent searches.
Board members, they say, also must contend with the built-in disadvantage of Florida's open records law, which shines an unwelcome light on candidates who want to keep their job searches secret.
Those and other factors will put the board at a disadvantage when the time comes to negotiate.
Some consultants say Hinesley's $170,000 salary is decidedly low considering the size and complexity of the district and the expectations of likely candidates. Many smaller suburban districts are rewarding superintendents with salaries well north of $200,000.
In addition to wanting better pay, the few top-flight candidates willing to leave the safety of their current jobs will steer clear of fractious, high-maintenance school boards, search consultants say.
"The larger the district, the less likely now that your blue ribbon people will apply," said Nolan Estes, a legendary former Dallas superintendent whose days as an educator date to Lyndon Johnson's presidency, when he served as an associate education commissioner. Today, he helps train superintendents at the University of Texas and is president of the search firm, Harold Webb Associates.
"Many superintendents are not willing to put up with a lot of political nonsense," Estes said.
He added: "The salaries are moving on up and I would expect that Florida is going to have to step up to the bar ... At $200,000, you'd begin to attract interest."
If the trend plays out that way in Pinellas, the district could find itself dramatically increasing the superintendent's salary in a budget year when it may not be able to afford teacher raises.
Despite the difficulties, Pinellas has some factors in its favor. Florida's budget problems and political infighting are no worse than most other states', search consultants say. And Pinellas, they say, has a good reputation and ample time to make a decision.
Hinesley, who has been superintendent since 1990, will not retire until late 2004.
"With that amount of time they should have a nice pool of candidates," said Marcia Tingey, office manager at Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, one of the nation's top superintendent search firms.
"Pinellas would be attractive because you've got a good reputation there," said Paul Houston, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators in Arlington, Va.
The district is known for its school improvement programs and its employee training using the Baldrige National Quality program, Houston said. "It's a district that's looking forward, not backward."
The shortage of superintendent candidates has been building for years, but it was documented in a 2000 survey of 1,719 superintendents by the American Association of School Administrators and the National Center for Education Statistics.
Nearly 80 percent of those surveyed were over 50 years old, and 82 percent said they were in a position to retire. About 90 percent agreed that the shortage was a "serious crisis in American education."
The problem has only worsened since the survey was released three years ago, Houston said.
Of interest in Pinellas: Only half the superintendents surveyed said they would consider a good job elsewhere, and only 18 percent said they would move to a large urban district.
Pinellas may seem like a suburban district in the stable neighborhoods of East Lake, Seminole and St. Petersburg, but, overall, it remains one of the nation's larger urban districts - with all of the problems that go with that.
The number of students on free or reduced lunches, for example, is 36 percent across the district.
Pinellas is the 22nd largest district in the U.S., with more students than Baltimore, Milwaukee and Cleveland.
In addition to budget woes, Pinellas will struggle over the next few years to maintain racial diversity with a new school choice program that replaces court-ordered busing.
"It's a challenging factor and I would say you really are going to have to have the right person to make that work," Estes said of the choice plan. That person, he said, will have to be a strong leader who can move easily among the varied groups with a stake in the choice plan.
He added: "There are some very, very able people out there who would do extremely well."
Emerging amid the candidate shortage are several "alternative" candidates who are not educators, said Ira Krinsky, managing partner with Korn/Ferry International, a Los Angeles-based executive search firm. He said districts recently have considered retired military officers, business executives and management firms to run their operations.
"The good news is that there's a lot of new things being tried right now," he said. "The bad news is there is no quick fix.'
Part of what keeps superintendents from exploring opportunities, Krinsky said, is that the rewards have not caught up to the soaring demands of budget problems and new accountability mandates, such as Florida's test-based school grading system.
"As hard as people have tried, the case that student achievement has not gone north as quickly as people want it to is a great source of frustration right now," he said. "The bar is being raised in a number of states and Florida is one of them."
Expectations for superintendents are so high, he said, "nobody could live up to them."
Invariably, consultants say, a candidate's first questions to a recruiter are about the school board and how well it works together.
In Pinellas, the seven-member board is a mix of five veterans and two newcomers who have struggled at times to get along.
Their meetings have been marked by long and lively discussions, the odd pointed barb, some sharp debate, but no meltdowns. On workshop days, they go to lunch together and seem to enjoy each other's company. Their work gets done, but they have labored to honor basic rules of etiquette such as not interrupting each other.
They also have been hit in recent months with a spate of tough issues, from budget cuts to key decisions on the choice plan.
The pace has been torrid. Twice in recent weeks, large public hearings have kept them at work past midnight.
Earlier this month, board member Carol Cook called for a board retreat to work out some of the problems.
She told her colleagues: "This isn't working"
The board's divisions have been evident in the superintendent search itself. Three favored hiring Stewart, Hinesley's top deputy. Three others wanted a national search, and Cook was undecided.
Stewart had said he would accept the job, but never aggressively sought it. Last week, seeing no change in the division, he pulled himself from contention. His decision has put the board on course Tuesday to consider a national search.
What likely will emerge in a big district like Pinellas are an increasingly rare breed of candidates who want a challenge, search professionals say.
They disagree, however, on the impact of the state open records law.
Krinsky called it a major deterrent for candidates wanting privacy.
Tingey said it will be a bigger turnoff than Florida politics.
Matching a superintendent with a district "is like a marriage," she said, paraphrasing a colleague. "Everybody wants to fall in love, but it's hard to fall in love in public."
However, Estes argued that candidates are going to be facing the limelight sooner or later.
"They might as well get started," he said. "If they're not willing to take the risk, then they're probably not the person for the job."
