Is School Board undermining new superintendent?

Dwight Jones was hired as superintendent of the Clark County School District to shake up an establishment in need of reform. In less than a year on the job, he's done precisely that, pushing for greater accountability, the abandonment of failed practices and the removal of barriers to improved student achievement.

Mr. Jones was expected to face some resistance to his ideas. But he was not supposed to get that resistance from the very School Board that hired him last year.

As reported by Karen Gray for the Nevada Journal, a publication of the Nevada Policy Research Institute, the School Board has very clearly and very publicly taken steps to limit the autonomy of Mr. Jones -- autonomy he needs to make sweeping changes to the structure of the district.

The board is doing this through Policy Governance, the paradigm trustees have followed for years. Policy Governance stipulates that the School Board creates the system's policies and goals and the superintendent interprets and executes them. Policy Governance was put in place to discourage individual trustees from micromanaging district operations and instead focus on the big picture.

Ms. Gray says Mr. Jones' contract with the district stipulates that trustees follow Policy Governance, a copyrighted oversight model. So to take away the leeway Policy Governance provides to Mr. Jones, trustees are interested in modifying Policy Governance.

"If we do not agree with your interpretation, it implies that we need to change our policy," School Board President Carolyn Edwards lectured to Mr. Jones last month, as reported by Ms. Gray. "And, so there are consequences if we don't agree with your interpretation. And those consequences are, we'll tighten our policy."

In other words, if Mr. Jones' reforms aren't to the satisfaction of the trustees' campaign donors -- primarily school district employee unions -- the trustees will step in and block those reforms one way or another.

This is a very bad idea.

The School Board hired Mr. Jones and moved him here from Colorado precisely because the district needed an outsider with reformer credentials. The district's administration was loaded with educators who've spent their entire careers in this system and were unfailingly loyal to the status quo. Many of these administrators are choosing to retire rather than work with Mr. Jones. Good.

That this School Board is so eager to bail out on Mr. Jones this soon is a testament to its collective cowardice and an indictment of the leadership of Ms. Edwards. She voted to hire him over other finalists, and she voted for his four-year contract. Considering Ms. Edwards herself campaigned as someone who would embrace change and expect improvement, she has been a major disappointment.

If Mr. Jones is slapped down before he even gets a chance to oversee an entire school year, the Clark County School District might as well post a sign outside its administrative headquarters that says, "Reformers not welcome -- ever."

Elected trustees have a vital role as stewards of the school district. But right now, their most important role is let Mr. Jones do the job he was hired to do.