The endless search for a Broward school savior

The nationwide search for Broward’s next school superintendent is at a critical stage following the School Board’s decision to winnow the field to three candidates.

Public job interviews are scheduled for June 14 and 15.

This search must conclude with the best outcome — period. The stakes are too high, the challenges are too great and the future of a generation of Broward children is too important.

For the next leader of the nation’s sixth-largest school district, board members know they must get this right. But a public backlash is already building against their preliminary choices, and that should be a cause for concern.

After the brief and drama-filled reign of former Superintendent Vickie Cartwright, Broward schools are in desperate need of strong, stable, decisive and inclusive leadership.

Cartwright was fired, reinstated and then departed by mutual agreement all within a few months and amid extreme turmoil as Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended four board members following release of highly critical grand jury findings that were secret for more than a year.

Unique challenges

Like all other Florida school districts, Broward also has seen much of its educational policymaking stripped away by a heavy-handed and excessively partisan Legislature and governor that have usurped the authority of local districts and politicized public education as never before.

If that weren’t enough, this district has uniquely deep, festering problems of its own, from lax oversight of massive bond issues and multimillion-dollar contracts to chronic bureaucratic shortcomings. The Broward district’s single biggest obstacle to reform is its own deeply troubled past.

Against this challenging backdrop, the search is on for a savior who can rescue this district.

The news this week was partly what board members did not do. They did not include as a finalist the only local semifinalist, Associate Superintendent Valerie Wanza, a Broward native, Miramar High School graduate and district employee for three decades.

Wanza received an outpouring of hometown support from principals, community members and union representatives, who called her approachable, caring and inspirational.

Speakers warned board members that they would send a negative signal to their workforce by snubbing one of their own. But the perceived appeal of an outsider, with fresh perspectives and no ties to the district, prevailed.

A batch of ‘blah’

Only four of nine board members listed Wanza as a finalist. A clumsy effort by board members Daniel Foganholi and Jeff Holness to retroactively add Wanza to the list failed. It was highly inefficient that no one from the board’s search firm, McPherson & Jacobson, was present Tuesday, and it looked amateurish that documents show that the firm relied on Google searches as a source of information about the semifinalists.

Another curious twist: Torey Alston was the only board member who chose only two finalists from a field of seven.

He said the others were so unimpressive that he literally wrote “blah” next to their names — a declaration that could come back to haunt him depending on who gets the job.

“I can’t find three folks that are worthy of an ‘X,’ ” Alston said, referring to the way board members marked their choices.

Six board members short-listed two candidates. They are Peter Licata, assistant superintendent in Palm Beach County and a Pompano Beach native, and Luis Solano, superintendent of schools in Detroit, who has worked for the Miami-Dade and Collier districts in Florida.

The third candidate, Sito Narcisse, who got five votes, is leader of the East Baton Rouge, Louisiana, district.

Narcisse, the most controversial finalist, has drawn criticism from the ACLU and LGBTQ community for his handling of a career fair with religious overtones. He also had a controversial tenure as headmaster of Boston English High School.

Narcisse has rejected the criticism, but Broward’s board needs to investigate his background thoroughly, as well as the other finalists. Narcisse sent the Broward board a glowing recommendation letter from Alberto Carvalho, the former Miami-Dade schools chief who now runs Los Angeles schools.

The official job posting for the Broward job lists as the No. 1 qualification the need for “strong communication skills” in the next superintendent.

We’ve heard this refrain before. Nearly four decades ago a divided Broward School Board decided that what it needed most is a great communicator.

The choice was an outsider, William Leary, who had led Boston schools through a tumultuous busing crisis in the 1970s. Leary brought big-city credentials, a quick wit and the promise of change, but he was gone in less than four years, dismissed with a year left on his contract because a majority of board members gave up on him.

The next superintendent will follow in the footsteps of Cartwright, Robert Runcie, Jim Notter, Frank Till, Frank Petruzielo, Sam Morgan, Leary and William McFatter, who departed in 1984.

Every single one of them arrived as a beacon of hope or a change agent, promising a turnaround. Every one left, most of them unhappily, with the job very much unfinished.

The Broward challenge begins anew.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.