Taschner: We posted for a secondary assistant principal…and we did that for a couple or reasons. One, because sometimes we anticipate that there will be openings in the district as people…administrators often transition during the summer months and they do that because they care about kids and it’s a good time to transition, it’s harder…it’s okay in the middle of the school year but it’s harder to do. And so we anticipated doing that. We have been…one of the things that I have been discussing and talking about is I think that…in a school of 1100…students at the high school, having only 2 assistant principals and 1 principal is really a difficult task. And I have listened to teachers this year that have talked about not having enough access to principals or not feeling like their discipline was getting done…in a timely fashion. And if you just do the math on that, if there’s 60 or 70 teachers and more if you add the other professionals in the building that need to talk to a principal and even if they have…you know each of them sends 1 issue a day…to 1 of those principals, that’s 60. And if each of those…if they just spend 10 minutes, look at how much of the day…and somewhere in there, they have to go to lunch duty, they to be able to observe teachers [laughs] they have to do…call parents back, you know? And so it…I said at the beginning, there are 2 important people in schools and I have really, from the beginning, kept on this mantra. Students…which is the first issue we talked about…and teachers. And so as they talk about this and feel like they need more support, and I can see that. There was a time when the district did have a greater level…number of people in the high school buildings than they do now. And because of different decisions that had to be made at different times in the district, that shrunk down. You can see that we have an assistant principal at Rainbow and…so when did the…and I added the assistant principal at Caln. So when we…posted for an assistant…a secondary assistant, that was with the goal of looking for someone for Scott and in the instance that we were going to have the ability to add someone…at the high school. And much of that was dependent on different moves that were happening in the district, you know. So…and we’re still moving through some of those, you know. That is probably not all done yet too.
Now as far as Mr. Daney goes, what a great…great thing that everyone wants him. [laughs] I think that’s great, right! And he was a great candidate and I think he’s going to be a great administrator here. And the…there were a couple of candidates that were interviewed that night and different groups…remember, I have a parent group interviewing them, I had a teacher group interviewing them and I had a group of administrators interviewing them. And then, you know a first group of administrators as well. So until it’s all said and done, all the administrators on the team get to be a part of it, either at the beginning or the end. Parents, every parent who wants to come, community members and then teachers. And not always do those 3 groups agree. So part of the job then as the administrative team is to come back and say, okay. This is what the parents felt like, they really liked this person. The teachers felt strongly about this person and the administrators felt…you know, strongly about this person. And then from that, take all that input and try to make a decision. So…you know, that was part of the issue. And the search for Scott isn’t done yet. We had some paperwork delays and I put that out in a message that I sent out yesterday. That we had some paperwork delays and so we…because of that, we kept interviewing through the process, just in the event that something wasn’t going to work out, we wanted to make sure that we continued to interview and put people in front of teachers and parents…so that they continue to have choices. But I think that the good news is that parents are coming in, and we’re trying to be very up front with them about…you know…and the parents were really good that night. I think the parents said clearly, look…this is who we prefer but we yield to who the principal feels is going to be the best match for them. I take that seriously, so when they said that to me…I said okay and I took it seriously.
The Times: It seems as though that building needs a strong team in place.
Taschner: They do, it has to be someone the principal can endorse, and the principal gets along with and that the principal…you know, Chemise, she’ll get along with anybody, its not that. But I think in just looking and saying what are the best fits for the district…you know…and certainly Mr. Daney has a skill set that I think is going to be really helpful at planning a STEM school since he came from the STEM high school.
The Times: Was that part of the reasoning behind putting him at the 11/12 center?
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