What particular qualities should the CEO of an urban school system of 37,000 students possess? What values should he or she champion?
And, of course, how can he or she do things better in the next three, five years?
Such questions were tossed around in classrooms at the East Professional Center Tuesday night at the first listening session in the months-long process to replace outgoing CEO Eric Gordon. Under the guidance of six reps from Chicago-based Alma Advisory, some four dozen attendees shared pointed thoughts about what, come April, the new CMSD head exec should be like.
“We know the best decisions come with the widest variety of opinions,” Lisa Thomas, a Board of Education member, said in a speech preceding the focus group breakout sessions. The goal, Thomas said, was to source input from the public, with Alma’s facilitation, to “help us create a profile of who the next CEO of the Cleveland school district should be.”
It’s no small undertaking after Gordon’s 11-year tenure, which has been widely celebrated.
After inheriting a system on the brink of disarray—and possible state intervention—in 2011, he steered CMSD, increasing public trust while bettering test scores. From 2011 to 2019, under direction from the Cleveland Plan, CMSD’s graduation rates jumped a resounding 30 percent.
“He took the time to listen and talk to you,” Jessica Boiner, a mother of two with a son, Damian, at Paul Dunbar, said Tuesday. “Like, if you say, hey, can I talk to you? ‘Yeah. Let’s set up the time.’ And he actually is there. He talks to you, he hears you, he comes up with a solution.”
Gordon’s knack for transparency, it seemed, was on the minds of Alma’s team, who had, just last year, helped engage the public in Cincinnati to hire their new superintendent, Iranetta Wright. In the five breakout sessions, held in private and without access to reporters, each manager—armed with a paper pad and marker—highlighted the ideals of transparency in their “safe space” for attendees.
And each nonprofit leader, artist, library branch manager, former teacher or principal responded with ideas that, Alma chief Monica Rosen said, will be presented to the Board of Education on February 7. The report will also source respondents’ input from a nine-question online survey, which will be available to the public until the end of the month.
Such feedback, Rosen said, will be used to “strengthen our interview process” for Gordon’s replacement. The finalists, she added, will be able to meet community members to “provide their input” before the final hire is made by the Board in “early May.”
For Boiner, whose two children, Seiko and Damian, are bound to one day graduate from CMSD, the hope is for the Board’s choice to come close to Gordon himself. Someone, she said, who lives, shops and works in the city. Who’s there for feedback.
And, she made key, is ready to expand CMSD’s programming for special needs students, like her 9-year-old Damian.
“I want [the new CEO] to engage with students with autism,” she said, referring to Damian’s condition. And for kids with special needs as a whole: “Where are their extra programs?” Boiner added. “We have all these new programs, but they’re not for them.”
Gordon will step down at the end of the school year in April, eight months after he announced his resignation on September 12th last year.
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This article appears in Jan 11-24, 2023.
