KALAMAZOO, Mich. — On Monday night, Kalamazoo school board members put questions to the first round of candidates for the district's open superintendent position.
The Kalamazoo Public Schools Board of Education picked six semi-finalists in the district's search for a new superintendent, after former superintendent Dr. Rita Raichoudhuri resigned in December. On Monday, the board interviewed three.
WATCH THE MEETING HERE:
Drs. Thomas D. Rogers, Marcy Sorenson, and Ty Weeks were each allotted an hour to answer questions about building trust with stakeholders, eliminating barriers to education, and addressing unsafe student behaviours, among other topics.
DR THOMAS ROGERS
Dr. Thomas Rogers, who has worked in public education for 20 years and is now the assistant superintendent for Shelby County Schools in Tenessee, says he's ready to assemble a team of "serving leaders."
"We have to be collaborative leaders," he told the board. "We have to understand how to bring people on board with us. We have to be able to listen, even when it's uncomfortable, we've got to be able to own where we are."
Dr. Rogers also said he's interested in having real conversations with students to determine what socioeconomic factors are keeping them behind in school.
"You might not have lights on at home. Or you might not know where your meal is coming from," he said. "So let's go in and have real conversations for those kids. Let's think about how we can help support them to get them to understand your true way out of poverty and becoming economically disadvantaged is through education."
When it comes to student discipline, Dr. Rogers says he wants to find alternatives to suspensions, where possible, saying he'd like to see more in-school suspensions and more spaces to ask questions and challenge students to "start making better choices."
"If we're sending kids home, they can't learn. So we're losing. There's no way to deliver on the Kalamazoo Promise," he said.
DR MARCEY SORENSON
Dr. Marcey Sorenson, the second candidate interviewed on Monday, said she's committed to gathering community input and learning from parents.
"It's one of my core values that I talk about all the time is that when we show up, we have to expect excellence of each other and all of us, because our students deserve nothing less, or the public deserves nothing less from all of us," she said.
Now the chief academic officer for Fort Worth Independent School District in Texas, Dr. Sorenson led the Chicago Public Schools as a high school principal for 20 years. Her first priority as an educator, she says, is building trust.
"My first responsibility is to learn where those relationships were broken and find out were trust was, was severed," she told the board.
Dr. Sorenson says she would "do a deep dive into the data" to learn more about the district, but also as a tool to identify students who need extra support.
"The research shows that kids start showing indicators of dropout as early as sixth grade," she said. "And so what are the data systems that we're putting in place to identify kids who are, say, having high attendance issues and high absenteeism or having problems with grades."
A major part of her plan, however, involves connecting with the people "who are going to be the boots on the ground."
DR TY WEEKS
The third candidate, Dr. Ty Weeks, said his experience as a kid growing up in Detroit influenced his passion for education.
"I lived through a community that had a lot of adverse circumstances. And education saved my life. As a result, I am committed to education," he said.
He's also concerned with identifying and connecting with students who are disengaged from school and finding effective ways to re-involved them, saying he supports home visits.
"When we go to their homes, we connect with them on a personal level," he explained. "But we also are able to understand the struggles and the barriers that students may be experiencing," He said these measures lead to "informed decisions about proper support."
Dr. Weeks also expressed his support for restorative practices when addressing student behavour. Instead of doling out suspensions, he wants to see students volunteering and serving in the community to "correct what they've done by contributing to the community."
WHAT'S NEXT
In total, the board sifted through 37 applications before selecting the final six candidates.
Candidates were drawn from all over the United States, with some from Michigan but others hailing from Missouri, Texas, and Chicago.
According to the board, the next three finalists will be interviewed on Thursday:
- Johnny Edwards, assistant superintendent of operations for the Portage Public Schools in Michigan
- Stephanie Jones, chief officer for the Office of Diverse Learner Supports and Services with Chicago Public Schools
- Darrin Slade, deputy superintendent of the Hazelwood Public School District, Missouri
