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Townview jobs attract less experienced applicants, trustee says
2:28 PM Wed, Jan 23, 2008 | Permalink
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About a month ago, DISD restored "principal" titles at Townview. The positions had been downgraded to "dean" and came with a lesser salary. Parents complained. The district listened and made the change, which mostly impacted two new employees that had been brought in as "deans" to run the Science and Engineering (SEM) and Education and Social Services magnets. The new employees (formerly assistant principals in neighboring districts) are now principals and their new salary range is $90,000 to $120,000, that's up from the dean salary they came in at of $73,368 to $87,452. Talk about parental involvement! But there's still a nagging worry, at least with DISD trustee Lew Blackburn and some parents. They ask: Would more "experienced" folks have applied for the job if it had been announced as principal with the higher salary instead of dean with the lower salary? Dr. Blackburn submitted a request for information on applicants who applied to find out. And he's not happy with what he's found. "I was very disappointed in the quality of the people who applied," Dr. Blackburn said. He noted that teachers and assistant principals applied for the positions, which normally would have attracted experienced principals -- especially at SEM. Trustee Blackburn specifically notes that the Science and Engineering magnet is one of the top schools in the nation, and he couldn't even recruit principals inside the district to apply for the "dean" job. Dr. Blackburn did say that the woman chosen to head SEM, Jovan Wells, formerly a middle school assistant principal in Mansfield ISD, was the better candidate on paper out of the applicants she went up against. (I wonder if some DISD principals are kicking themselves for not applying for the "dean" positions, but who would have known they'd be upgraded.) Trustee Blackburn hopes it all works out. "I just wanted to see for myself," he said in explaining his actions. "But I'm going to try to give the new principals the benefit of the doubt." |
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Comments
Posted by Glendon Plumton @ 11:43 PM Wed, Jan 23, 2008
It is now January, 2008. Mr. White had a stroke in, I believe, July of 2006. It was confirmed that he was not returning by December of 2006. As of right now, our new principal is believed to be able to resume work on the 28th following a hospitalization from an allergic reaction to medicine over the winter break. From the date that she officially started in December, DISD had 12 months to get us a principal. Out of the multiple requests for applicants, it took them three (I think) tries to even get qualified candidates. A school as prestigious as SEM should not take that long to have a slot filled. The only reason I can think of for this to occur was because no one qualified even found the job opening when searching for jobs because when you search for "Principal", dean openings don't appear. Only people who are either a) are looking for a dean opening or similar position, or b) know from other sources that there is an opening will find this position. I would like to know what who would have applied for this job opening if it had been advertised. I'm also fairly sure that there are few people who would take a $20,000 salary cut for a job with the same or greater responsibilities.
Ms. Wells is more or less an unknown. I look forward to seeing how she will do, and she could be the perfect person for the job. All great principals had to have started somewhere. The problem is, we weren't presented with the full talent pool because of Hinojosa's "tinkering" with the magnet program. The only thing that DISD did not mess up on in this whole process was reverting the position to Principal at the vociferous urgings of the communities.