Director Dilemma

The front page of the June 6, 2008 Jabberwock mistakenly announced “The Hunt for New Administrators Begins.” Unfortunately, this title was a bit premature.

In fact, the search for a new MLWGS director will not officially begin until early November, when an application for this position will finally become public.

At the September Regional Board meeting, Mr. John Axselle, director’s search committee chairman, provided an update on the status of the director’s search.

The update was disappointing.

Last year’s suggested plan to hire a new director who could “shadow” Mr. Hunt for the last portion of the current school year is now entirely infeasible. It is now known that committee will not begin interviewing job candidates until February at the earliest, and selection of the new director will “hopefully” be reached by May.

This news comes as a shock to those who were under the impression that a new director would be selected by mid-year in order to allow for “on the job training.”

Another disconcerting aspect of the proposed director’s search was revealed with the committee’s make-up. The committee will consist solely of seven Regional Board members.

The lack of faculty, student, and parent involvement on this crucially important search committee is utterly disheartening.

Some in the MLWGS community have hinted at the possibility that a new director may have already been quietly selected and that the “search” will merely serve as a formality. At the very least, the search committee should include several non-voting parent, student, and faculty members to allay any such unfounded concerns.

In the midst of all this, however, it is reassuring to hear Mr. Axselle’s reminder that the committee will search not only locally, but nationally, and possibly even internationally to find the next Mr. Hunt. While a specific plan for how the search will be conducted is still a bit blurry, one thing is clear:

MLWGS cannot simply wait until crunch time to find a new director. Although this worked once, with the last-minute, “temporary” hiring of Mr. Hunt, we just can’t count on being so lucky for the second go-round.