Tom, on the secretive process your article says the "Board will argue that this process is required in order to protect the confidentiality of the applicants."
This is not a criticism of you since the Board doesn't respond to your questions, but I am aghast at why the Roundtable or Evanston Now doesn't press the board on the process. As y…
Tom, on the secretive process your article says the "Board will argue that this process is required in order to protect the confidentiality of the applicants."
This is not a criticism of you since the Board doesn't respond to your questions, but I am aghast at why the Roundtable or Evanston Now doesn't press the board on the process. As you say the board "will argue". Have they ACTUALLY argued this point this time around?
They did claim this the last time and they explicitly lied about it, with Board President Suni Kartha issuing a statement saying "We are thoughtfully considering opportunities to obtain additional input while respecting the confidentiality requested by the candidates in order to remain in our search process."
Horton was a finalist at this time and he was flying all around the country participating in public searches. So we are supposed to believe that he "requested confidentiality" from Evanston to remain in their process?
The argument at the time was that you get a better pool of candidates when the search is secret, yet the guy they chose was actively and publicly looking to leave his job.
You can only draw two logical conclusions from that argument:
1. We didn't get a good pool of candidates and had to hire a weak candidate who was actively (and unsuccessfully) looking for a new job.
2. We liked the guy we hired and having a public search actually doesn't dissuade good candidates from applying.
If someone had asked Sergio, "why aren't you having a public process" and he said, "we want to get the best candidates," the obvious followup question is "Well, Horton was a public candidate in other searches. Was he not a good candidate?"
I think the obvious answer to the follow up is "No. He was inexperienced and left the District in a financial mess." I doubt Sergio would admit this.
If he says "Horton was great. We want Horton 2.0." The follow-up is "Well , apparently you CAN get great candidates with a public search. Why didn't you do it in an open and transparent way this time?"
If he admits that Horton was bad, the follow-up is "Why don't you change up the process and make it open and transparent so you can engage stakeholders to make a better decision this time around?"
I don't recall the exact source of my claim on confidentiality, I'll have to dig around and see where I got that from but I'm pretty sure it was from some of the stuff from 2019-2020. I think your logic here is pretty sound
The problem is —there’s no two-way discussion at these board meetings. They don’t reply to comments. They just stare at you and sometimes even get up and leave the room. 🙄
Usually a couple of them are just sitting there texting (which is FOIA'able!). I've come around to believe that, at least with D65, the public comment section is an opportunity to talk to the audience .. not necessarily the board.
Seeing how the board is making shady moves I think it would be necessary to FOIA their text messages on their phones. The board is not above the law and needs accountability.
Tom, on the secretive process your article says the "Board will argue that this process is required in order to protect the confidentiality of the applicants."
This is not a criticism of you since the Board doesn't respond to your questions, but I am aghast at why the Roundtable or Evanston Now doesn't press the board on the process. As you say the board "will argue". Have they ACTUALLY argued this point this time around?
They did claim this the last time and they explicitly lied about it, with Board President Suni Kartha issuing a statement saying "We are thoughtfully considering opportunities to obtain additional input while respecting the confidentiality requested by the candidates in order to remain in our search process."
https://dailynorthwestern.com/2019/11/12/city/district-65-narrows-search-for-superintendent/
Horton was a finalist at this time and he was flying all around the country participating in public searches. So we are supposed to believe that he "requested confidentiality" from Evanston to remain in their process?
The argument at the time was that you get a better pool of candidates when the search is secret, yet the guy they chose was actively and publicly looking to leave his job.
You can only draw two logical conclusions from that argument:
1. We didn't get a good pool of candidates and had to hire a weak candidate who was actively (and unsuccessfully) looking for a new job.
2. We liked the guy we hired and having a public search actually doesn't dissuade good candidates from applying.
If someone had asked Sergio, "why aren't you having a public process" and he said, "we want to get the best candidates," the obvious followup question is "Well, Horton was a public candidate in other searches. Was he not a good candidate?"
I think the obvious answer to the follow up is "No. He was inexperienced and left the District in a financial mess." I doubt Sergio would admit this.
If he says "Horton was great. We want Horton 2.0." The follow-up is "Well , apparently you CAN get great candidates with a public search. Why didn't you do it in an open and transparent way this time?"
If he admits that Horton was bad, the follow-up is "Why don't you change up the process and make it open and transparent so you can engage stakeholders to make a better decision this time around?"
I don't recall the exact source of my claim on confidentiality, I'll have to dig around and see where I got that from but I'm pretty sure it was from some of the stuff from 2019-2020. I think your logic here is pretty sound
Come to the board meeting tonight!!!
The problem is —there’s no two-way discussion at these board meetings. They don’t reply to comments. They just stare at you and sometimes even get up and leave the room. 🙄
Usually a couple of them are just sitting there texting (which is FOIA'able!). I've come around to believe that, at least with D65, the public comment section is an opportunity to talk to the audience .. not necessarily the board.
Seeing how the board is making shady moves I think it would be necessary to FOIA their text messages on their phones. The board is not above the law and needs accountability.
I didn't see anyone texting last night and trust me, I looked :)
Did they say anything about the residency requirement?
NOPE. I'm working on this now actually.