Tensions Arise as Schools Chief Search Lags

Laboring under a looming deadline to name a new Los Angeles school superintendent, school board members complained Friday about lackluster candidates and inadequate preparation by the headhunter firm running the search.

The complaints fueled concerns that the board was becoming contentious and losing its focus as it approaches its Monday target to name a leader for the troubled Los Angeles Unified School District.

“I expected more and better candidates by now,” board member David Tokofsky said. “I think the fix is in for Roy Romer,” he added, referring to the former Colorado governor who has openly campaigned for the position.

“He may well be the best candidate, but if we don’t interview more than one or two significant candidates, how will we know for sure?” Tokofsky asked.

The search firm has presented the board with 11 potential candidates, but only three were interviewed. Several people recommended by the firm withdrew their names, while the board elected not to consider others.

The board was expected to interview two additional candidates today. Both have management experience at small districts with fewer than 50,000 students, district officials said. Former New York school Chancellor Rudy Crew is also expected to meet with the board in the next few days.

The board is determined to select a superintendent who has the support of all seven members. It also is under pressure to name a superintendent in time for that person to help interim Supt. Ramon C. Cortines launch a massive reorganization that takes effect July 1, the same day Cortines is scheduled to give up his job.

In interviews, three board members expressed dissatisfaction with the background information that has been prepared on the candidates.

“I am not at all pleased with the limited homework being done by the search firm,” Julie Korenstein said. “I’m having to do it all myself.”

The board members said they had not been provided with critical articles on one of the three candidates on their short list, John Murphy, superintendent in Charlotte, N.C., from 1992 to 1995.

Ed Hamilton, who heads the search firm, dismissed those concerns, saying: “ . . . school reform is one of the most controversial topics in the country; everybody involved in it has an opinion.”

“I would not be surprised if anyone who’d made any waves anywhere were not subject to criticism,” Hamilton said.

Some board members contend that the process has been rocky from the start. According to one board member, they had only 15 minutes to prepare for their first formal interview with a candidate. That candidate was Romer.

A day earlier, on May 25, the board’s first choice for superintendent, former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros, turned down the job, citing personal reasons.

Tokofsky complained that the board received only a two-page file on Romer, which he said resembled “something taken out of a who’s who.”

At one point, Tokofsky said, he asked the district’s inspector general, Don Mullinax, to conduct a more thorough background check of Romer. Tokofsky said board President Genethia Hayes told Mullinax to stop.

As it stands, the board has interviewed Romer twice. It also plans to conduct additional interviews with George Munoz, a former president of the Chicago Board of Education who now heads a federal agency that promotes international trade, and Murphy.

“The process has not been smooth, and it’s had its moments of confusion--but I’m not ready to toss the whole thing out yet,” said board member Victoria Castro. “The majority has managed to work its way through those fumbles.

“Remember, we’re talking a board comprised of seven powerful egos,” she said. “And we’re having to deal with inexperience on the part of some, including the board president.”

Hayes would say only that she was pleased with the process.

In the meantime, there is concern that the selection process may be carried out too hastily.

“I’m anxious, and I’ll be troubled if they make a rushed decision,” said Mark Slavkin, a former school board member and spokesman for the Los Angeles Annenberg Metropolitan Project, a school reform organization.

“We can’t have this board basing its final decision on hasty interviews and a few telephone calls,” Slavkin said. “They’ve got to get it right. No one will remember if the selection moved back a month. But they’ll never forget a decision the board lived to regret.”