Cisneros Turns Down Offer of Top Job in L.A. Schools

The search for a new Los Angeles schools superintendent grew more difficult Thursday when Henry G. Cisneros declined an offer to take the job and the Board of Education decided to look beyond the list of five nominees submitted by its selection committee.

During an all-day meeting behind closed doors, the board interviewed former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer, the only one of the five top candidates who still wants the job, but made no decision.

“We’re still in an interview mode,” board President Genethia Hayes said.

Hayes said two more candidates are now under consideration.

Sources close to the search said the board had offered the job this week to Cisneros, the former mayor of San Antonio and U.S. housing secretary. In an interview Thursday, Cisneros said that family considerations made it impossible for him to accept the grueling seven-day-a-week duties that would come with leading the nation’s second-largest school district.

Two big-city schools superintendents on the list had said Wednesday that they were no longer seeking the job, and the leader of the Rochester, N.Y., teachers union said he never was interested.

Hayes and others declined to name the two new contenders, although board member Victoria Castro said one is now a superintendent in another district and the other is not an educator.

Board members said they were among six people that the search committee recommended as qualified but who did not make the top list of five.

It became clear Thursday that the board knew when it received the five names that three had already backed out and that Cisneros had expressed strong reservations.

“It seemed awkward to us to receive names that weren’t available,” Castro said.

Castro said she didn’t consider the new names to be from a second-tier list. The other names were mentioned in Monday’s briefing, she said, although the presentation focused on the five.

“We asked the committee to give us five,” she said. “There were others attached. That didn’t mean they were less capable or less qualified. They are top candidates. They just weren’t among the top five.”

In the confusion, speculation has focused on whether interim Supt. Ramon C. Cortines might be pressured to extend his stay, which is due to end June 30. Cortines, who has planned a massive district reorganization since becoming interim superintendent in January, has repeatedly said he will not consider extending his commitment. He declined to discuss that possibility Thursday.

Castro said the question did not arise Thursday, though it has been mentioned at various times by board members “at points of frustration and confusion.”

Hayes said it would be inappropriate to raise that subject while the search was still active.

“I don’t think that would have been even an appropriate discussion unless we felt we had reached the end of deliberations and we couldn’t find anybody,” Hayes said. “We are not anywhere near that conclusion.”

Hayes said the special counsel to the board would try to schedule the two new candidates for interviews with the board today or, if they are not available, Tuesday or Wednesday.

Hayes said the board selected the two new candidates without going through a complicated evaluation.

“I think the board was interested in those two more than others,” she said. “We read all of their resumes. There was strong consensus that there was interest in two candidates.”

She said the search committee characterized them as only slightly less stellar than those on the original short list of five.

“They said here are five stellar candidates and here are 11 excellent candidates,” Hayes said. “There was to their mind a smidgen of difference between 1 to 5 and 6 through 11.”