Contract sets high bar for new school superintendent

Congratulations are in order to the Columbus City Schools Board of Education for reaching a contract agreement over the weekend with the district’s new superintendent, Talisa Dixon, Ph. D.

Uncertainty over her start date was not helping the district move forward at a time when it is critical to improve performance on state standards or face losing control to a threatened state takeover in 18 months.

Having a firm start date of March 4 is also welcome news, especially since earlier indications were that Dixon, selected in September, would not leave her current position as superintendent of the Cleveland HeightsUniversity Heights City Schools until the current school year ends in July. That would have given her scant time to help Columbus schools turn around their overall “F” grade on the state report card issued Sept. 13.

We hope that Dixon is as good at steering the schools toward better performance as she apparently was at negotiating details of her new contract, which gives her a base pay rate of $242,000, an increase of more than 50 percent over her current base pay of $159,400. Dixon’s pay also well exceeds the $195,000 base pay received by the district’s previous superintendent, Dan Good.

With salary add-ons, Dixon could make close to $300,000 in the coming year even if she doesn’t qualify for bonuses. They could add another $39,000 if the district improves performance in four benchmarks on the state report card from “F” to “A,” which would be a stretch. The overall grade for her current district is “D.”

The add-ons, similar to what Dixon has in her current Cleveland contract, include $31,000 for the district to pay her share of contributions to the State Teachers Retirement system, $9,000 for an auto allowance, $1,800 for a technology allowance and $1,750 for her share of Medicare contributions. One-time payments of up to $10,000 in moving expenses and up to $3,500 for part-time work of a day a week before her start date are also in the contract.

If Dixon succeeds in turning around the poor performance of the state’s largest school system, her higher pay and bonuses will be worth it. We look forward to good results from her new leadership.

Post-election analysis is about more than just counting the votes in a particular race.

One of the more interesting observations to come out of last week’s midterm elections was Dispatch Reporter Bill Bush’s look at who used the early in-person vote option at the Franklin County Board of Elections headquarters in Columbus’ Northland neighborhood.

It turns out that more than 45 percent of those voting there live within 5 miles of the Morse Road location. Considering that the county covers 532 square miles, how many more might have voted if one or two other early voting locations had been available?

State law limits every county to just one early voting center, but Catherine Turcer, executive director of government watchdog group Common Cause Ohio, argues that “doesn’t make sense.”

For Franklin County, the state’s most populous county, having an additional early-voting location or two closer to where more people live or work, such as Downtown or a suburban site, could help boost voting even more, and that’s a good thing.