The names of the two final candidates to become District 202’s next superintendent were announced Sunday at a community forum held at Evanston Township High School, 1600 Dodge Ave.
Allan Alson will be retiring in June after 14 years as the superintendent of the district, which includes only ETHS.
Gloria Davis and Eric Witherspoon are the school board’s two finalists to fill the position. Each spoke to the audience of about 100 for a few minutes then answered questions for 50 minutes.
The questions, submitted on notecards by attendees, were read to the candidates by William Newman, assistant director of Ray and Associates, the firm selected to aid the ETHS school board in the search process.
Discussion focused on the candidates’ educational philosophies. Neither proposed specific plans for change nor did they discuss their management credentials in detail.
Davis, superintendent of Dodge City Public Schools in Kansas, said she comes from a diverse 6,200 student district where 68 percent of students are Hispanic.
She emphasized the need to work with students on an individual basis. She won’t try to make education “one size fit all,” she said.
Witherspoon, superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools in Des Moines, Iowa, said he too comes from a diverse district with minority students making up 36 percent of the student population and with 4 percent of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch.
Witherspoon said building relationships with students allows them to become more connected to their education. He also stressed community involvement saying that he wanted to “set up an environment that really embraces getting people involved.”
Many questions focused on the achievement gap at ETHS. According to ETHS’s 2005 State Report Card required by the No Child Left Behind Act, black students fell short in math and reading achievement on state tests, and Hispanic students fell short in math. A high enough proportion of white students passed both tests.
When asked about closing the persistent achievement gap, Davis said “students who are having difficulty in school need more time.”
To reduce the gap, she proposed an expanded summer school program for students performing in the bottom 10 to 20 percent on state tests as one solution. This plan mirrors a program developed in her current district.
Witherspoon said his main priority for ETHS would be closing the achievement gap.
“There are no instant answers in education,” Witherspoon said. “With commitment to strategies we can prove that that gap can be erased.”
Although he offered no specific solution, he said he planned to spend a lot of time and effort working on the achievement problem.
After each candidate spoke, attendees could fill out comment sheets asking how close each candidate came to meeting the listed criteria that was decided upon at the beginning of the search.
Newman said the comments were going to be reviewed by the school board directly following the forum. He also said there is no set date for when the new superintendent will be announced.
Nancy Segal, one of the parents in the audience, said she believes it is always good to include the community in such a big decision. Still, she said she was not completely satisfied after the question-and-answer forum.
“Did it answer all of my questions? No,” Segal said.
She said educational philosophies are important, but she wanted to know more in depth about the management skills each candidate possessed, like dealing with people, running the facility and managing a large budget.
Segal said she submitted these questions, but they were not asked by moderators.
Reach Anna Prior at [email protected].
