Ball Is in Your Court, Supt. Flynn

OK, Dan Flynn, you’re in.

Now make believers of us all.

Over the howls of critics and the vigorous No votes of two trustees, the Simi Valley Unified school board named Flynn superintendent of Ventura County’s largest school district.

Skeptics pointed to his lack of administrative experience, his acrimonious departure from a former job, his religious conservatism and, most of all, the lightning speed with which he was hired--before efforts to select a headhunter firm to conduct a nationwide search could even begin.

But as the dust begins to settle, we stand ready to live and learn.

True, Flynn has never run a district and he is starting with 19,400 students in 27 schools. But he served three years as principal of the county’s court schools. If he can ride herd on three schools full of juvenile offenders, he ought to be able to keep the peace in Simi Valley.

True, Flynn was fired from that job three weeks after losing his ballot-box challenge to his boss, county Supt. Charles Weis. The charge was purchasing-rule violations; the countercharge was petty politics; the finale was a $120,000 settlement of Flynn’s wrongful termination lawsuit. Last week Weis sent his new fellow superintendent a welcome-aboard note. Right move. Let other critics be as big.

True, Flynn is a conservative Roman Catholic and member of Promise Keepers who has received vocal support from the area’s Christian right. He says he respects the separation of church and state and we take him at his word until he shows us otherwise. There is a word for assuming the worst of someone because of their religion, and that word is prejudice.

And true, Flynn got the job largely through his connections with school board President Norm Walker. No other candidates were interviewed. No, this is not the way important positions like this should be filled. It confirms all the worst fears of those who view the world as a closed club of inter-networked white males who advance each other’s careers and shut out everyone else. There is still too much truth in that perception.

Yet Simi Valley has gone through six superintendents in the past seven years. By now the board should know what qualities it is looking for and have a good sense of the available talent. Flynn can hardly be a more disappointing choice than the last outside recruit, Tate Parker, turned out to be.

So OK, Dan Flynn, you’re in.

Now show us the trustees made the right decision.