OUR TURN: MFISD School Board ignored basic lesson: Finish what you start

Schoolchildren are taught early in the classroom to finish what they start. Sadly, that is a lesson that seems lost on the Marble Falls Independent School District board.

A few weeks ago, after spending thousands of dollars and vetting dozens of candidates over several months, the School Board opted to abandon its search for a permanent superintendent.

Instead, they want the next group of trustees to make the decision after the May elections, which still are more than three months away.

The School Board, in essence, passed the buck. Apparently they couldn’t reach a consensus, in spite of the fact nearly 50 applications were turned in and interviews were conducted.

This is exactly the kind of thing teachers tell their students not to do. Pupils are taught to accept responsibility, to make appropriate and judicious decisions and to complete a task.

The School Board has been searching for a superintendent since July, when Ryder Warren left for the Midland Independent School District.

Surely by now the trustees — after hiring a search firm at taxpayers’ expense — could have found a man or a woman qualified to run a 3,900-student 4A school district?

Trustees are elected to represent school patrons and make decisions. Sometimes those decisions are hard. And sometimes School Board members won’t agree on everything — including the choice of a superintendent.

But that is why their decisions are based on a majority vote. Politics is the art of compromise, and this board should have learned that lesson a long time ago.

The interim superintendent is Jim Boyle, an eminently qualified but retired school administrator who now specializes in acting as a caretaker until a permanent school chief is found.

By putting off the search for Boyle’s replacement, the board had to re-negotiate his contract — yet another expense to taxpayers.

It’s a shame Boyle is unavailable for the full-time slot; he is good at his job, well-liked, personable and very intelligent. But he has made no secret of the fact he is also retired. The district is lucky he agreed to stay on until May, but they also had to sweeten the pot by agreeing to new terms for his contract.

And an interim superintendent is not likely to make new or far-reaching policy decisions, or hire top-level administrators/managers, leaving those decisions instead for his permanent successor. But by the time the new superintendent arrives at MFISD, Boyle could have been on the job for nearly a year.

Meanwhile, the Legislature has convened, all but promising that cuts are coming to Texas school districts because of the state’s $15 billion-$27 billion deficit. Under this shadow, shouldn’t someone be at the helm of MFISD to make the necessary course corrections without fear he or she will be second-guessed or have their decisions overturned in the months to come?

So now, instead of finishing the job of seeking a superintendent, everything is on hold for several weeks, which doesn’t count the fruitless and costly search that began in July.

The process, and the meter, will start running again in early May — another expense for taxpayers in a district already operating with a deficit budget.

Perhaps it’s time for some of the MFISD School Board members to return to class and write on the board 100 times: “I will finish what I start, I will finish what I start …”