Informed public input should be part of selection

The proposed public forum intended to introduce taxpayers to candidates for Clovis’ school superintendent’s job will not happen Thursday as we’d hoped.

Only one of five finalists, former Clovis High School Principal Andy Sweet, agreed to participate. The Clovis News Journal and radio station KTQM had planned to host the event, but we will forego the forum since the majority of the candidates said they will not be involved.

Bill Reents was still undecided when we last asked him about the public forum. The other finalists — Ladona Clayton and David Briseno of Clovis and Rhonda Seidenwurm of Las Cruces — declined, for various reasons, to answer taxpayers’ questions in a public forum. That’s their prerogative since it wasn’t part of the formal interview process.

But the real mystery is why school officials did not require candidates to face the public.

Actually, school district officials went out of their way to make sure our final five knew they did not have to meet the public that way, and they did so before most of the candidates had even been invited. Why? What’s wrong with public scrutiny?

Word on the street is that school administrators were concerned a media forum would evolve into a pep rally for disgruntled teachers who back Sweet for superintendent, and that the News Journal was in their camp.

We’re not in anybody’s camp.

Like district officials, we too have heard from lots of teachers who want Sweet for the job. Those calls began arriving right after Neil Nuttall announced his resignation last fall.

Sure, teachers had asked the paper to organize a forum after the interview process was unveiled and one was not scheduled. But some folks have short memories. Weeks before that, this newspaper editorialized in favor of a public forum.

Let us be clear on this point: This newspaper has not publicly supported anyone for superintendent; we do not endorse candidates, though we will point out obvious issues involving any of them.

For example, we like that Sweet is willing to address the public’s questions in public, not just before the school board or teachers. However, we’d like to hear what he has not yet explained to either our reporters or to taxpayers as to why he stepped down as Clovis High principal last year. He’s never really answered layers of questions in public on that subject.

We like that Clayton and Briseno, current Clovis school administrators, have intimate knowledge of the district’s strengths and weaknesses and would not have to familiarize themselves with background information. However, that strength is also a weakness if viewed in the light of teacher complaints that district administrators are unwilling to hear their concerns, and that Clayton and Briseno found reasons to avoid a public question-and-answer session.

While we like the idea that Reents and Seidenwurm could bring a fresh outside look to our school system, just as Nuttall did and with many good results, they do not know our students, teachers and community. How long would it take them to get to know us and make decisions in our children’s best interests?

All these issues are why we’d like to see a public forum. It isn’t about favoring any candidate, it is about questioning them all and hearing in their answers how their minds work.

School board members can still require candidates meet the public before making their decision, but Board President Terry Martin said Monday there are no plans to do so.

Martin has said he wants informed public input and that he supported media efforts to host the forum.

Unfortunately, Martin’s words were not followed by any action. Interim Superintendent G. C. Ross said it was Martin who asked him to make those calls to candidates making sure they knew they didn’t have to attend the media forum.

The final decision on who will serve our children next as superintendent is, rightly, the school board’s. The members will conduct in-depth interviews with the candidates and check references, thoroughly we presume. Yet it is frustrating that the board is not seeking input from the group that matters most: the citizens of Clovis. A public Q&A won’t just tell board members how well the candidates can think on their feet under a spotlight; it will tell the board what education issues are on the public’s mind as well.

We want school board members to make the decision on our new superintendent — that’s why we elected them. But we’d prefer they make that call with as much information as possible and that certainly should include input from an informed public.