[00:00:00] Speaker A: The Daily Gazette Company presents the weighing in podcast, the show that brings you inside the Daily Gazette's feature news column. Now here's your host writer of the weighing in column, Andrew Waites.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: In January, the Schenectady City School District superintendent, Annabelle Solaire Jr.
[00:00:17] Speaker C: He announced that he was leaving after just two and a half years on the job.
[00:00:23] Speaker B: And it was a fairly big blow to Schenectady just because people have generally liked Solaire and thought that he's brought.
[00:00:29] Speaker C: About some concrete results.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: The district has seen modestly improved gains.
[00:00:36] Speaker D: In test scores under his leadership, and.
[00:00:39] Speaker C: Then he passed a massive 300 million dollar capital improvement project that is quite literally changing the look of the district by improving facilities.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: But beyond just losing a dynamic leader.
[00:00:52] Speaker C: Like Solaire, who was recruited to take over the superintendent role in Yonkers, the.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: Worry in Schenectady was that yet again.
[00:01:00] Speaker C: The district would be going without a top administrator for some lengthy period of time. So it took the district 14 months to hire Solaire when he came in 2021. And in a district that has not only dealt with tumult at the top, its previous two superintendents left amid corruption.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Charges and abuse charges.
[00:01:21] Speaker C: It also just deals with big issues.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: I mean, there's the academic struggles, yes.
[00:01:26] Speaker C: Test scores have improved marginally, but they still need to come up.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: And there's also discrepancies among white students.
[00:01:32] Speaker C: And students of color that the district really needs to deal with.
Graduation rate could use improvement.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: There's attendance issues.
[00:01:42] Speaker C: So we're talking about major concerns that the district finds itself dealing with regularly. And it needs a leader.
[00:01:49] Speaker D: It needs a steady leader at the.
[00:01:51] Speaker C: Top who is taking all of this on and leading the charge in the way that Solaire was. So it's really important that the board of education find the right leader and find that leader relatively quickly so that the district isn't sort of twisting in the wind and left with this period of uncertainty.
[00:02:09] Speaker D: And on Wednesday, that's exactly what happened.
[00:02:12] Speaker C: So during the Wednesday night board meeting, the president of the board, Bernice Rivera.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: She announced that the board of education.
[00:02:20] Speaker C: Has actually already made its choice. They know who the next superintendent is.
[00:02:24] Speaker D: And they are going to announce the.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: Name this coming Wednesday, on March 6. And so I know that it's often.
[00:02:32] Speaker C: Splashier to write a negative column and kind of trash decision makers or local.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Boards for getting this wrong or getting that wrong.
[00:02:39] Speaker C: But frankly, the board of education in Schenectady has done admirable work here.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: They've worked quickly and I think found hopefully a replacement for Solaire that the.
[00:02:49] Speaker C: Community is going to support, and that deserves praise.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: The hope is going to be that.
[00:02:53] Speaker C: The search, quick as it was, leads to a person who's committed for a.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: Long time, whereas Solaire, it turned out.
[00:03:01] Speaker D: Ended up not being committed for a long time.
[00:03:04] Speaker B: But of course, we won't really know.
[00:03:05] Speaker C: That until we're living through it.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: So at least right now, the district has done its job and found hopefully.
[00:03:13] Speaker C: A suitable replacement who is ready to step in here quickly. So here's my piece.
[00:03:20] Speaker B: The last time the Schenectady City School.
[00:03:22] Speaker D: District Board of Education set out to hire a new superintendent, leaders waited through a painstaking 14 month process.
The search was waylaid by the pandemic, featured an unsuccessful negotiation with a candidate, and then had the added complication of an abrupt departure by an interim superintendent. Finally, in July 2021, the board announced its exhaustive and exhausting search had reached its terminus, introducing the dynamic Annabelle Solaire Jr. As the next leader of the large urban district. Fewer than three years later, after a promising start that's already delivered modest gains in academic performance and an injection of positivity bolstered by a massive 300 million dollar capital improvement project to remake aging facilities, Solaire announced in January he's leaving for a bigger job in Yonkers. That left many in Schenectady shuddering at the prospect of another year or more without steady presence at the top, a situation made all the more urgent when Solaire announced he'd be beginning his new position downstate on May 1. Superintendent searches average six to nine months.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: According to the New York State Council.
[00:04:27] Speaker D: Of School Superintendents, a period of potential wheel spinning that could have led to Schenectady taking a turn for the worse, especially after the district's most recent superintendents prior to Solaire departed amid scandal. But just as people in Schenectady braced for yet another lengthy period of turmoil and uncertainty, the board of education this week offered a somewhat unexpected display of.
[00:04:49] Speaker C: Efficiency and good sense.
[00:04:51] Speaker D: On Wednesday, Board of Education president Bernice Rivera announced the board has selected the next superintendent, a name they will formally unveil March 6. Carlos Kodo, the district's number two, whom Solaire hired from Rochester in 2021, is the presumed favorite. And this time the process took fewer than two months, so quick that Solaire will still be around once the chosen candidate is named before the current superintendent takes off at the end of April.
In large part, the alacrity was possible because board leaders committed to an internal promotion rather than a broad external search. The easy knock against such a strategy is that it greatly narrowed the scope of the selection process and inherently meant well qualified candidates fanned out across the state and beyond were never considered. But that's short sighted criticism. During Solaire's administration, the district has been making progress. Why look far and wide when you already have a good thing going in house? The community seems to agree strongly. As part of the board's search process, the district administered a survey to garner input directly from families, neighbors, staff members, students and others to learn about what they want in their next superintendent. I thought the one question survey, asking what community members hope to see the next superintendent prioritize during the administration's first hundred days, should have been more expansive. Ed Holtiman, a survey expert with survey design and analysis, whom I asked to provide perspective on Schenectady's questionnaire, said the question itself is extremely vague and thus is unlikely to provide any useful information. But it turns out that a single question managed to be productive, yielding thoughtful and detailed responses. Overall, more than 800 community members engaged with the board regarding the search, according to Rivera. Consider that fewer than 300 people participated in a survey about the district's superintendent search in the spring of 2020, and that's a sizable improvement in engagement. Perhaps credit to the community school's culture, Solaire and his team have implemented. Overwhelmingly in their communication with the board, community members expressed a desire for an internal candidate who could continue the work that's already begun, Rivera said during Wednesday's meeting. Our communities, meaning the district and the neighboring community, want someone invested in Schenectady, Rivera said. While sharing feedback the board received. The community prefers a person who resides in Schenectady, an internal candidate that's already up to speed with our plans moving forward, the community feels an internal candidate is more apt to stay for a longer period of time, some have said. We have the talent in house. The community had so much enthusiasm for an internal candidate that many survey respondents even named specific members of the current cabinet. The names were not shared publicly during Wednesday's meeting. There's a strong indication that many people in Schenectady know precisely what and who.
[00:07:43] Speaker C: Cough Codo cough they wanted.
[00:07:46] Speaker D: As a result, the board appears to be on the verge of announcing a new superintendent who stands to enjoy strong community support, a candidate chosen based on the community's desires, a candidate who in some capacity will be on the job this month.
That's hugely important because even as the district has improved under Solaire's leadership, much more work is needed. Case in point, prior to discussing the superintendent search Wednesday night, the board heard presentations that described worrying discrepancies between white students and students of color in areas of academic performance and attendance. These sorts of pressing needs demand action and answers rather than a prolonged period of questions about the future of the district's administration. After Solaire announced his departure, there was some fear he'd take with him his stellar leadership team, leaving Schenectady with a gaping void. Thankfully, it appears that won't be the case. After the meeting, Solaire joked, Rivera told him he wasn't allowed to poach any members of his cabinet before saying more seriously, my goal is not to hurt Schenecthe upon my exit.
[00:08:52] Speaker B: You bringing anybody to Yonkers?
[00:08:54] Speaker E: No, that was one. Nobody's told me I can't take anybody. No, I just joking.
I don't even know the talent that's down there and there is a lot of talent down there because their outcomes are 90% graduation rate for being the third largest school system in the state of New York. So there are some lot of good things that are happening there. And so my goal is not to hurt Schenectady upon my exit. I do know, like I said earlier, it was bittersweet. I do know that my departure did frustrate and did piss some people off. And I get it. People thought I used the system, but if they knew who I was, they knew that was never my, you know. My hope is that the real proof would be that we will be better after my departure.
[00:09:35] Speaker D: Not only is Solaire promising to leave the remainder of his team intact in Schenectady, one member is now set to inherit the job. That should allay worries and serve as a salve to a community that wants a superintendent who has been in Schenectady and who is committed to staying in Schenectady. In a freudian flub during Wednesday's presentation, Rivera described the survey as asking about what people want to see from the next superintendent during the first hundred years rather than 100 days.
[00:10:02] Speaker F: What should the new superintendent focus on as they enter the district, ending their first hundred years as a leader of.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Commitment?
[00:10:20] Speaker C: Rivera said to laughter after realizing what she'd said. No doubt there was truth embedded in the error.
[00:10:28] Speaker D: That's it for this week's episode of the Weighing in podcast.
[00:10:32] Speaker C: I'm Andrew Waite. You can reach me at
[email protected] welcome your feedback. Thanks to Zeb Schmidt and Jeremy Kloe.
[00:10:41] Speaker D: Who do the technical editing for this podcast. Thanks to Aaron Palaya, who handles marketing.
[00:10:46] Speaker C: I'm Andrew Waite. Take care.
Don't.
