THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 24, 1995 TAG: 9509220228
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 15 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALETA PAYNE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
Not surprisingly, the School Board wants the next superintendent to have excellent money management skills and high standards of integrity.
A candidate's profile based on a survey of board members' preferences will be used by Sockwell & Associates, the consulting firm helping the division look for a replacement for Sidney L. Faucette, who left the Beach in June to head a Georgia school district.
Since Faucette's departure, the discovery that the school system ended the 1994-95 fiscal year with a $7.4 million budget shortfall clearly factored into board members' independent rankings of desirable qualities.
The five selected by the most board members, in order, were:
``Well-founded financial management skills''
``The highest standards of personal and professional honesty and integrity''
``A pledge to mandate excellence and continuous improvement''
``Effective oral and written communication skills''
``An earned doctorate is preferred''
In all, most of the 33 categories on the survey were cited as important by at least one board member, but Sockwell & Associates has suggested the search focus on the top 16. Susan N. Jernigan, a partner in the firm, said information from board members and a variety of people in the community was used to come up with the categories, which the board then ranked.
``There was actually more consensus than I expected, which was kind of nice,'' Jernigan said. ``A couple of categories received a lot of emphasis in Virginia Beach because of things that have happened.''
Jernigan said her overall impression from talking to community members about the schools was one of optimism.
``People really want to feel Virginia Beach is one of the top two or three, if not the top, school district in the state,'' she said. People she talked to felt matters needed to be ironed out here, but that the district wasn't ``broken.''
Jernigan said her firm has gotten 50 to 60 responses to an ad placed in a professional publication. She and her colleagues also are approaching people they think might be a good fit for the Beach job.
By mid-October, they hope to identify the top eight or 10 candidates for further review. The board will consider a field of five or six people sometime in early November. ILLUSTRATION: OTHER TOP QUALITIES IDENTIFIED BY THE BOARD
``Open and honest board relations''
``A gifted, participative manager''
``An appreciation of traditional academics''
``Instructional leadership''
``An organizational healer''
``A minimum of 15 years experience as an educator''
``Strategic leadership''
``A willingness to look honestly at quantitative and qualitative
indicators of unsatisfactory results or lack of progress in district
programs''
``A familiarity with technical/career education programs''
``A love and concern for all children''
``An unwavering insistence on safe and orderly schools''
by CNB