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School Board tries power grab

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By TOM JACKSON

Published: June 24, 2009

Those who filled the Pasco School Board chamber last Tuesday hoping for fireworks came away sorely disappointed - unless their idea of a Big Finish is the simple elegance of Robert's Rules of Order administered with an understated flourish. In that case, the evening was everything the most veteran thrill-seeker could have hoped for, and then some.

Gone in swift succession have been an energetic assistant superintendent, Ray Gadd, a tech-savvy communications director, Maureen Moore, and a longtime assistant principal, Robin Futch, all with slight explanation. "Different direction," said a cryptic Superintendent Heather Fiorentino, leaving the rest to fill in the blanks - which they did, of course, attributing to her only nefarious intent.

Such is the razor's edge of keeping one's own counsel.

Rookie board member Joanne Hurley, wielding the trusty cudgel bequeathed by the previous occupant of District 2, roughed up Fiorentino both for her actions and for her failure of elaboration. But the inadequacy of her complaint - why it lacked the spark to ignite a big-bang showdown - soon would be revealed.

Kathryn Starkey of the High Chaparral Starkeys was no less annoyed, heaping praise on the departed and urging reconsideration. Like Hurley, she hinted darkly that she would know the intended "different direction" before she willingly joined the voyage.

But their solution is unprecedented, and dangerous.

Last Tuesday night, Hurley moved to reconsider the board's approval of the slots formerly held by Gadd and Moore. A nodding Starkey seemed ready to sign on. Doing less, she said, would reduce the board to the superintendent's "rubber stamp." But Robert's Rules intervened - the board could not strip out two of the 100 or more positions approved in the original motion - and Hurley backed down.

Adherence to proper procedures notwithstanding, are the members suggesting that unless Gadd and Moore fill those slots, the district does not need an assistant superintendent for support services or a director of communications and public relations? If that is the case, then they are putting themselves on the record favoring make-work jobs for favored individuals.

This latest showdown affirms the wisdom of Pasco voters who, several times but most recently in 2006, have declared their preference for an elected superintendent. An appointed schools chief would view every appointment and every decision through a lens polished by a small board that recent activity reveals is easily stampeded. Better to be answerable every four years to constituents who can be counted on to weigh the totality of the superintendent's work.

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