Milkman’s Matinee News, Special to WPCNR, 3/14/02, 1:30 AM EST: School Board President Donna McLaughlin advised the PTA Council last night that the Board would be interviewing six candidates beginning this Saturday for the post of School Superintendent. She made the statement at the monthly meeting of the PTA Council.
According to a WPCNR observer, the topic of the superintendent search was not raised until a little before 10 PM, when President McLaughlin brought the subject up on her own. Our correspondent reports Ms. McLaughlin told the PTA Council the Board would interview six candidates with some interviews conducted this Saturday and next Wednesday.
McLaughlin told the Council the plan is for the Board to select two “finalists” from the six, and then conduct a second round of interviews, with a select number of members of the PTA and community groups present at the interviews.
They will be meeting “mover and shaker” types, according to the consultant heading the Superintendent search.
Dr. John Whritner, one of the Hazard Young & Attea consultants fielding candidates for the Superintendent position, last week told us he is bringing in strong candidates for the job. As of last week he said there were four and hoped to bring in two more.
Whritner said the circumstances surrounding Dr. Yanofsky’s departure were not a detterrent to quality superintendent candidates. He reported candidates approached about the job around the country, on the contrary, are impressed with the district’s high interest and passion about education. Candidates, he said, love White Plains history of making a substantial, sustained budget commitment to their children, year after year.
He said they are eager to accept the challenges articulated by the community. He reports candidates look upon White Plains as a chance to address major educational concerns of today in a great school district and personally make a difference.
In other news from the PTA Council
Board of Education members were asked by the members of the council about their goals for the district.
According to the WPCNR reporter present, Ms. McLaughlin said she wanted to provide tools and leadership to improve academic performance, focusing on policy. Later, in discussing the budget, Ms. McLaughlin said she would prefer in the next school budget process to start from zero and build a budget from there, rather than asking the schools what they wanted, then cutting it down.
Dorothy Scher said she thought bringing a new superintendent on who would stay for more than three years and bring stability to the school district staff was her key issue, rather than changing leadership every three years.
Larry Geiger said he sought to work to keep White Plains a school district of choice where people choose to come here because of the school district.
Michelle Tratoros said she was very concerned about addressing “the acheivement gap” documented by the eighth grade middle school tests. On those tests, white and Asian students scored 50% better than black and Hispanic students.
Dr. Saul Yanofsky was asked about evaluation of programs. He said that was hard to do in a scientific way, according to our correspondent.
Yanofsky illustrated the problem by saying anecdotal evidence indicates that the Newcomer Center is working well. But, he said, to scientifically evaluate the difference the Newcomer center makes, you would have some new children in the district go directly to Kindergarten, with other children sent to the Newcomers Center and track their progress.
Our observer said that the lack of discussion on many future concerns especially the superintendent search was because of the presence of Dr. Saul Yanofsky. It was our observer’s feeling that the council members felt uncomfortable about talking about White Plains school matters that Yanofsky would not be responsible for any more.
Our correspondent said so many future matters depended on who the new superintendent is, and this became apparent on many issues brought up.
