Superintendent finalists enter next round

Published 9:11 am Thursday, February 12, 2009

Two of the three finalists remaining in the search for a new superintendent of Albert Lea Area Schools met Wednesday with community groups and gave presentations to the Albert Lea school board.

Cathy Bettino, superintendent of the Pine River-Backus School District, and Joe Brown, superintendent of the Grand Meadow School District, each gave a 15-minute presentation, then fielded questions from the board members.

Mike Funk, superintendent of the Bird Island, Olivia, Lake Lillian School District, termed BOLD, meets with the board today. He, too, will interact with community groups.

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The results of the meetings with the community groups will be given in reports to the board today.

Bill Leland, chairman of the board, said he wants the process to be dynamic. Thus, after the community reports, the board’s options will be myriad: It could choose to wait a day or decide right away to narrow the field to two.

Once a decision is made, board members will make site visits to the districts the finalists lead and review what they found before proceeding.

Cathy Bettino

Bettino on Wednesday opted to give her presentation on open enrollment, giving an overhead slideshow of figures and talking points. She spoke about Albert Lea’s net loss of 128 students. She noted Minnesota was the first state with open enrollment, starting in 1990, and said the premise was school reform.

One big reason parents move their children into other districts is geography — proximity to home or work. Another reason is for charter schools, which appeal to parents seeking small sizes, family-school cooperation and personalized instruction. Yet another reason is home-schooling.

She pointed to online learning as yet another alternative. Bettino said students today grew up with the Internet and are comfortable learning through it. They are “digital natives.”

“Their brains are wired to think and work digitally,” she said.

Online learning offers 24/7 capability and students can learn at the pace they set, with differentiation in the extent of instruction.

She talked about out-of-state education companies offering the options to stay at home and earn degrees.

“It can be quite appealing to a lot of people,” Bettino said.

She said school districts can accomplish the same thing. She said the Houston, Brooklyn Center and Fergus Falls school districts entice students from all over Minnesota with online learning.

“One of the greatest criticisms of public schools is we are slow to change and look the same from one generation to the next,” Bettino said.

She said Albert Lea seems forward-thinking enough to see new ways to reach students and build enrollment.

Bettino listed key elements for elementary, middle and high school and with all three were listed “ensure genuine and positive interpersonal relationships with students, parents and community.”

She said she will make Albert Lea a dynamic school district with five elements: public relations, technology, curriculum and instruction, essential skills and professional development.

“Do this and we will see a shift in enrollment to neutral and hopefully eventually to a gain,” Bettino said.

After the presentation, she fielded questions from the school board.

Bettino said it is important the school board maintain “its role as a governance organization” by setting budgets and policies. She said it has to let the superintendent handle management, with the school board members as a sounding board.

“There’s a lot of mutual respect in that process,” Bettino said.

She also said she favors training as a major part of being a school board member.

She said she always has been approachable and engaging with families. She said she is responsive to inquiries and will be seen in the community and in the schools.

Bettino said she would like to enhance curriculum with online learning, Response to Intervention (an assistance program for students having a hard time learning) and Responsive Classroom (an elementary program that weaves social skills with academic instruction).

She said she would need assistance from the administration in making the transition from a small district to a large one. She said she would work from what is in place and tweak to her leadership style.

After fielding questions about how she would handle personnel, she then was dealt a question about what she would do if was “made aware” of an inappropriate relationship between a female student and a male teacher.

Bettino said she would investigate immediately and put everything else on hold. She would start with the principal, then meet with the teacher and the union representative.

She said her most unsuccessful endeavor was she didn’t get board support for something she wanted. Her greatest accomplishment “has been my ability to empower staff to teach well.”

The top three challenges facing public schools are 1. budgeting and doing more with less 2. getting public support to fund schools at the state and local levels 3. meeting the needs of technology.

She said she is the Region 5 legislative liaison. She said superintendents used to have a one-day rally at the Capital and now are there through the session.

Legislators “are as excited to talk to us as we are to talk with them,” Bettino said.

Joe Brown

Brown said gave his presentation about fighting declining enrollment through evaluations and reports.

“Our customer base is what drives our budget,” he said. “We need to increase our customer base.”

He said he believes in merit pay for teachers but he also is a fan of performance-based pay for administrators, too.

He passed out folders with papers describing accountibility measures, such as weekly enrollment reports he expects schools to turn in. They would be used to identify trends, such as if fifth-graders are leaving a school because they feel bullied. He said the reports shape administrative meetings.

“It’s a great way to keep everybody accountable,” he said.

The folder also had examples of forms filled out by teachers and by observers. He shared evaluation examples from North Carolina and from Illinois and said a combined version would work well in Albert Lea to keep the district focused on enrollment.

“Sometimes I think we’re like airplane pilots,” Brown said. “We take off and we don’t stop and think about what we’ve done until June.”

Brown said he was a school board member when he lived in the Chicago suburbs. He said the board sets the district philosophy by setting policies and he works closely in genuine relationships with school board members.

“I’ve had wonderful relationships with boards,” he said.

He said if selected people will see him at school events often with school board members.

He said while in Rake, Iowa, he met an Albert Lea parent whose child attends Alden-Conger because of bullying.

“We must have a welcoming environment for students, teachers, staff, administrators, parents and senior citizens,” Brown said.

He said he is accessible to the point that he gives people his full contact information with every e-mail message. He said he would rather have a parent contact him at 10 p.m. than remain upset.

“They will have direct access to me,” Brown said.

Brown said he would use his marketing background and his political background as skills to bring the school district together.

He said he wasn’t a fan of online learning until this year. He said his school district was the most fuel-efficient in state, had growing enrollment and still had to cut $300,000 — a sign he said of funding formula problems — so Grand Meadow cut another $40,000 to establish an online learning program so students can take extra classes.

He said every student surely will have online learning when they hit the workplace.

Brown said there will be little problems making a transition from a small district to a large one. As the former principal of Austin High School, a former teacher at Mankato East and a former parent at Mankato West and Austin, he said he is the only candidate who has Big Nine experience and who knows the other Big Nine administrators.

He said a small school results in superintendents doing everything, even deciding snow days, and that alone gives experience. “A small system is a microcosm.” He also cited his time as a principal in a start-up school in Chicago with 1,140 African-American students where all but five qualified for free lunches.

He, too, fielded personnel questions before he had to answer the question about a male teacher and a female student. Brown said he would contact the principal to share the allegation, then direct the principal to begin an investigation. He said he also would meet with the parents to explain the investigation. And he and the principal would meet with teacher and his union rep to talk. Finally, if in the end the rumor is false, he would track down who is causing it and take disciplinary action.

Brown said his most unsuccessful endeavor was an unsuccessful levy where he pushed for it front and center. He learned to follow Albert Lea’s example and have a community task force do the politics and the superintendent stay in the background. His greatest accomplishment was being among the first legislators in the nation to approve an open enrollment measure, speaking of when he was an Iowa senator. The Iowa governor vetoed the measure, but when Minnesota passed open enrollment, Iowa then passed it. Now 37 states have it.

He gave his top three challenges for public education in reverse order. They are 3. funding and the challenges of planning in spite of yearly, monthly and weekly fluctuations 2. acedemic excellence (he mentioned how for some students it is cool to get a D and uncool to be smart) and 1. the lack of time to teach to the students who need it.

“Why build multimillion dollar facilities and they are there only 15 percent of their time?” Brown asked.

He said the funding formula is extremely unfair to outstate Minnesota and he would use his background to work with the legislators to provide equalized funding.

The board meets with Funk at 2 p.m. today. The community groups leaders give their reports immediately afterward. The meetings are open to the public.

About Tim Engstrom

Tim Engstrom is the editor of the Albert Lea Tribune. He resides in Albert Lea with his wife, two sons and dog.

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