The next superintendent could be presented as early as May 5.
By Knowles Adkisson / The Malibu Times
The search for the next superintendent for the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District is nearing finalization, as the district Board of Education selected a final list of candidates at a special closed session meeting Thursday last week.
Board members will interview the finalists at the Viceroy Hotel in Santa Monica this weekend, after which they are expected to pick their top candidate.
Board President Jose Escarce was pleased with the quality of the applicants.
“We think it’s a remarkably strong pool of candidates, and a really strong set of finalists that we chose,” Escarce said.
Most, if not all, of the finalists are believed to be sitting superintendents at other school districts. Due to confidentiality for the finalists, Escarce would not confirm how many candidates are still under consideration, but it is believed to be between three and five. Outgoing Superintendent Tim Cuneo retires at the end of June, and the next superintendent will be expected to start July 1.
The board is expected to choose one candidate after this weekend and begin contract negotiations, which usually take several weeks.
Peggy Lynch of Leadership Associates, the firm that has conducted the search, said that many boards publicly introduce a superintendent at the first board meeting after negotiations are finished. If the SMMUSD follows that formula, the new superintendent could be introduced as early as the board’s May 5 meeting.
The recent history of district superintendents is turbulent. The new superintendent will be the fourth one since 2006, when John Deasy left the post for a school district in Maryland (Deasy is now the superintendent for the Los Angeles Unified School District). His replacement, Dianne Talarico, lasted just two years before leaving for a district in Northern California. Outgoing Superintendent Tim Cuneo was appointed interim superintendent, and seven months later he assumed the full title.
Lingering tensions remain between Malibu and the district office in Santa Monica from the debate surrounding the unsuccessful effort to convert Point Dume Marine Science Elementary School into a charter school. The charter drive often pitted Point Dume parents against Cuneo and board members.
Kathy Wisnicki, the last Malibu resident to serve on the board, told The Malibu Times in January that “this is the most contentious I’ve seen in our district in the 15 years I’ve been here.” Wisnicki felt that Cuneo’s lack of dialogue with members of the Malibu community hurt both sides during the Point Dume charter process.
She said the next superintendent must do more public outreach in Malibu if the rift is to be healed. Such outreach, Wisnicki suggested, could include more trips to Malibu, more public meetings and greater personal interaction with all members of the Malibu educational community.
Mayor Pro Tem Laura Rosenthal, who has been active in educational issues, including spearheading a drive to create a separate school district for Malibu, has said that the next superintendent should also be “an innovator” who is both knowledgeable about new educational ideas and willing to accept suggestions from district teachers and principals.
There has also been controversy between Cuneo and the board itself. In February, a confidential memo sent by Cuneo to the board was leaked to the press in Santa Monica, apparently by a board member. Cuneo warned in the memo that three disgruntled parents could “sabotage” the district’s negotiations with the Santa Monica City Council to receive its share of Proposition Y and YY funds. The resulting controversy brought criticism both of Cuneo and of the board member who leaked the memo.
Another major concern for the new superintendent will be navigating the California budget crisis. Gov. Jerry Brown is threatening major budget cuts, including to education, if five-year extensions to income, sales and vehicle taxes totaling about $12 billion do not pass the Legislature. The district is also paying about $200,000 per month in mental health costs that used to be paid for by Los Angeles County, but have been shifted to school districts due to lack of funding on the county level.