School board seeks selection advisors

Newport-Mesa school leaders invite parents, others to help find a new superintendent; deadline is Feb. 17.The Newport-Mesa Unified School District has taken another step toward finding a new superintendent, inviting parents and other community members to volunteer for a districtwide selection committee.

Last week, the school board posted an online message requesting applications for the superintendent selection advisory council, a 45-member group that will conduct the search. The board seeks 10 parent representatives and seven local residents who do not have children at the district’s schools.

The deadline for applications is Feb. 17. At the school board’s Feb. 28 meeting, members plan to draw names at random to appoint the representatives, who will cover all four high school zones, all seven trustee areas, preschool and alternative education.

Supt. Robert Barbot, the leader of Newport-Mesa for eight years, plans to retire at the end of June.

“The community is large and we usually have more people who would like to be on it than could be on a working committee, so we decided this time and the last time that we would draw names out of a hat to give them equal weight,” said school board President David Brooks. “The school board doesn’t appoint anybody to the community. That way, everybody gets an equal chance.”

In 1998, the last year Newport-Mesa searched for a superintendent, it appointed a 21-member committee of parents, administrators, teachers, students and others in the education community. This year, the board expanded the committee to 45 members, due to interest from a number of groups.

Among the groups newly represented on the advisory council are the Newport-Mesa Schools Foundation, the Harbor Council PTA and the District English Learner Advisory Committee. The seven non-parent community members, called trustee area representatives, are also a new addition.

With the deadline for applications more than a week away, many Newport-Mesa parents and other residents have submitted their forms. Mark Buchanan, the chairman of the Measure F campaign team Citizens for Quality Schools, and René Powers, the Parent Teacher Assn. president at Newport Elementary School, both said they had put their names forward.

“I’m very excited about the opportunity to have more parents involved this time, but we’re going to miss Dr. Barbot,” Powers said. “He’s shown a lot of respect for us.”

About her ideal choice for a new superintendent, she added, “Newport-Mesa is varied in its pool of students, meaning we have every available economic situation in these cities. I would hope they would draw someone who knows our state, knows our legislative area and knows what we have done in the past.”

Wendy Leece, a former school board member and parent of a Newport Harbor High School student, also said she planned to apply for a position. In 1998, she participated in the search that led to Barbot’s appointment.

“The one thing I always want to know is about a person’s integrity -- what kind of reputation that person has in the community as someone who’s honest, and also transparent as far as leadership in different community groups and in the school system as well,” Leece said.

“There shouldn’t be any negative comments. A person really does have to walk on water in this district because you have to make so many people happy.”

. Terry Torres, the secretary of the Newport Heights Elementary School PTA, said her board planned to send a newsletter out to all parents next week inviting them to apply.

Experience, Torres said, was her main criterion for a new superintendent.

“I would hope that they have filled the shoes of every step leading up to superintendent -- that they’re a parent or grandparent, were a teacher, administrator, leader, board member, that they have filled all those shoes so they know how those people feel,” she explained.

Laura Boss, the district’s coordinator of administrative services, said she had received 32 applications by Tuesday afternoon from parents and community members.

Most of the boards represented on the advisory council will appoint their own members for the superintendent search; others, including the English Learner Advisory Committee, will submit names to be drawn by lot.

By the end of the Feb. 28 meeting, the board expects to fill all of the posts on the advisory council. In April, the committee plans to begin the interview process with final candidates, with the new superintendent to be hired a month later.