San Diego Unified announced the three finalists in the running to become the next superintendent of the second largest school district in California: Oakland nonprofit leader Debbra Lindo, former Hayward Unified superintendent Dale Vigil and the current interim superintendent, Bill Kowba.
Whoever is the ultimate pick for superintendent will be expected to work within an organizational structure, a mission and with top employees who were already chosen by the school board. That is relatively unusual: Superintendents usually pick their staff and often reorganize school districts they enter, shaking them up each time a new chief comes to town.
"What we don't want is someone who's going to come in and turn the district over again," school board President Richard Barrera said, describing all three as having "a collaborative leadership style."
Airing the names of the finalists is a relatively rare move for San Diego Unified, which has traditionally hired headhunters to seek candidates and conducted its search entirely behind closed doors. After three different superintendents have cycled through the school district in just five years, the hope is that a new, more open process will find a superintendent who is a better fit and more committed to San Diego.
Barrera said all three candidates showed the qualities that parents, teachers and community members said they valued at community forums, including the ability to manage a large and complex organization and understand the academic needs of students. Both Lindo and Vigil are longtime educators; Kowba has the most experience with running large organizations and, obviously, inside knowledge of San Diego.
Interestingly, all three are candidates who seem to have little to lose by letting people know they're looking at the San Diego superintendency. Vigil left his last school district, Lindo is now working in a nonprofit, which looks like
Middle school math teacher Kevin Beiser, who led the primary race for the San Diego Unified school board seat now occupied by Katherine Nakamura, just won the endorsement of the teachers union.
The union did not endorse any candidate in the June primary. It has frequently been at odds with Nakamura. Stephen Rosen, a third candidate, failed to fill out his questionnaire
Marsha Sutton raised an interesting issue in a recent San Diego News Network column:
Kathy Lorden, vice-principal of Serra High School, will soon be working under