Columbus schools need new leader in place sooner
The Columbus Board of Education has chosen for its next superintendent a woman who knows the district and has led its most successful high school. Talisa Dixon was recruited away to other districts and is returning to Columbus with a passion to help develop its students into “52,000 great citizens.” That is great news.
The possibility that she might not start that work for another nine months is not. The school district is facing tough challenges and needs to address them without delay. It must decide on a recommendation to close school buildings, including two high schools, and repurpose others. Report cards released by the Ohio Department of Education gave Columbus an F, ranking the district among the 14 lowest-performing among the state’s 608.
These are challenges that cry out for leadership, and that leadership needs to come from the CEO who can set a new course and will be in place to see it through.
Incredible as it seems, the school board apparently didn’t set a firm start date when it offered Dixon the job last week. While officials said then that they expected Dixon to start in Columbus in January, her current district claims she’s staying there until the end of the school year.
A statement from the Cleveland HeightsUniversity Heights City School District quoted Dixon as saying she plans to stay put through the end of the school year. Columbus board president Gary Baker said on Tuesday the board will “be in negotiations with Dr. Dixon.”
We hope they can prevail on her to start her work here sooner. Waiting so long for new leadership would not be good for a school district that already has been without a permanent leader since December, when former Superintendent Dan Good retired.
Good gave notice of his retirement four months before that, giving the school board ample time to find a replacement. But a search that started last November was abandoned in March, after the school board chose five finalists behind closed doors, prompting state Auditor Dave Yost to formally warn members that they may have violated Ohio’s openmeetings law and could be personally liable for money spent on the search and hiring.
After an awkward and error-prone year-plus, with the school board having chosen a promising new leader, it’s frustrating to learn that the not-sotiny detail of a starting date wasn’t nailed down. It’s fairly standard for contract terms to be negotiated after the choice is made, but unwittingly accepting a nine-month waiting period isn’t.
Meanwhile, the board has another critical choice to make: a new member to replace Dominic Paretti, who resigned Friday after two women with whom he worked in the Ohio House of Representatives complained that he had sent them lewd text messages.
What the board needs is someone who is well versed in the challenges urban schools face and committed to the hard work of seeking consensus on ideas that will make things better. We hope the new member won’t be an opportunist with designs on higher elective office.
The deadline to apply — you must be 18 and registered to vote and live in the district — is 5 p.m. Friday. Applicants should explain in writing their interest in serving on the board and send that, plus a resume and any other supporting materials, to ccstreasurer@columbus. k12.oh.us.