Ypsi Schools' superintendent search ends in draw

By James Cavanaugh
May. 20, 2009    ·    11:09 a.m.

After a process that started nearly four months ago, the Ypsilanti Board of Education’s superintendent search ended Tuesday night with no candidate chosen.

Although no official vote was taken, each board member expressed his or her preference during deliberations.

Trustees Kira Berman, Sarah Devaney and Board President David Bates voiced their support for Ypsilanti’s Assistant Superintendent Richard Weigel. Trustees Floyd Brumfield, Edward Jackson and Vice president Linda Horne suggested they’d vote for East St. Louis District 189 Superintendent Dr. Theresa Saunders.

Trustee Andrew Fanta told the board he would not vote for either candidate. Noting that although none of the candidates “really knocked [his] socks off” after receiving applications in March, Fanta said he tried his best to participate in the selection process.

“I tried to be a good site team member,” Fanta said. “I remain proud of the process we went through.”

He later added that he thought both candidates had “deep flaws.”

With the exception of Fanta, all other trustees laid out their arguments for either candidate. Devaney said she went through the board’s candidate profile bullet point by bullet point and concluded that Weigel was the better candidate.

“Mr. Weigel was able to come into a situation years ago…where our grant and title monies were in a mess,” Devaney said. “He has given examples during his interviews of innovative ways he balanced the budget.”

Bates agreed with Devaney’s assessment of Weigel’s financial abilities. He also told the board he appreciated what Weigel has done for the district’s curriculum.

“The district was in disarray, instructionally,” Bates said, also referring to the past curriculum as a “train wreck.”

“When you look back over what’s happened, we have a structured program,” he added.

When talking about her support for Saunders, Horne said she was impressed by how students in East St. Louis spoke about their superintendent.

“The students were proud to talk about Dr. Saunders,” Horne said. “They mentioned they felt like a family in the high school.”

In a moment of levity, Jackson told the board that he’d been losing sleep during the last several nights due to the decision he’s had to make and because of “James Hawkins withdrawal.”

“Any reason I lean towards Saunders is because her functioning as a superintendent is as close to James Hawkins as we had,” Jackson added.

Several community members who attended the meeting voiced their disappointment over the fact that a superintendent was not chosen.

“I feel like you’ve abdicated your responsibility,” said Ypsilanti resident Mary Delcamp. “We’ve wasted time and we’ve wasted two good candidates.”

Joshua Chenier, a YPS alum and current substitute teacher, voiced his support for Weigel at the beginning of the meeting, but acknowledged the need for a candidate to have strong board support.

“I was definitely hoping for a decision to take place tonight,” Chenier said. “But I knew a deadlock was possible.”

It is still unclear exactly how the school board will move forward now that the current search has finished. Several trustees suggested that Dr. James Hawkins, the current superintendent, would be asked to stay on until they re-posted the position or until an interim could be found.

Dr. Michael Emlaw, of the Michigan Association of School Boards, who assisted in the search, said that although he’s never been through a superintendent search that ended without a candidate chosen, he acknowledged that it’s not totally uncommon. And when it does happen, the board typically takes a cooling-off period.

“It isn’t normally re-posted quickly,” Emlaw said. “It’s normally an extended period of time.”