The search for a new superintendent of Shoreline Unified School District was the focus of talks at last Thursday’s board of trustees meeting, when a debate took place over how to reconfigure Shoreline’s administration in the wake of deep budget cuts. 

Aside from replacing former Superintendent Tom Stubbs, who resigned on June 30, the district is tasked with defining the future hours and workloads for two part-time principals and the director of the special education program—and deciding if a new leader should also handle one or more of those positions.

 

With Shoreline still running a slight structural budget deficit, the district’s trustees, staff and community members have for months been brainstorming a variety of solutions for reforming administrative positions, including combinations of full-time, part-time and dual roles. Given that Marin County school districts rank among the highest echelons in California for administrative compensation, many in Shoreline feel concerned that the costs for paying full-time administrative salaries—which routinely top $200,000 in Marin—could eliminate key educational programs that have long brought struggling students up to par with their peers.

Among these programs are reading intervention, a one-on-one forum outside the classroom designed to pair specialists with students to help improve their reading comprehension and language skills. That program took a serious hit this year, following the retirements of several reading-intervention specialists including Sue Gonzalez and Sandy Kaplan, both of whom joined Shoreline in 1997.

Ms. Gonzalez and Ms. Kaplan accepted retirement incentive packages last year that kept the district’s newest, least-senior teachers from being handed pink slips, as the district sought to right its sinking budget ship.

“Our reading intervention teachers were impacted by the budget cuts,” said Laurie Monserrat, who parents a nephew at West Marin School. “We don’t have a reading intervention teacher, but we do have money for a full-time superintendent, who is the furthest person away from the kids?”

Classroom teachers now take time out of their already busy schedules to provide a semblance of the reading intervention program, according to Imelda Macias, a parent of four current Shoreline students, and one graduate now in college.

“This program helps my kids,” said Ms. Macias, who is the president of West Marin School’s English Learner Advisory Council. “But the teachers are doing this job now. They are taking their time from teaching in the classroom to help each of them.”

Avito Miranda—Shoreline’s newest trustee and the only Latino representative for a district that boasts a Latino student majority—echoed Ms. Macias’ fears that the loss of the reading intervention program could prove detrimental to student achievement. But he countered that a strong, full-time superintendent could, in fact, provide enough of a presence in the district to inculcate a resurrection of programs like reading intervention.

“I believe a strong superintendent could bring stability and oversee the real, important things, which of course includes the reading program,” Mr. Miranda said. “Then nobody else could take it from us, because there’s someone there to back us up.”

Most in Shoreline have been in favor of bringing on a full-time superintendent to helm the district’s office in Tomales, with many also hopeful of hiring a candidate who has a strong background in special education. Most would also like to keep three full-time principals, spread out over four school sites.

Few have expressed interest in one person filling a single part-time superintendent, part-time principal position. Among those opposed was Nancy Neu, Shoreline’s interim superintendent, who felt the workload was too great to split the position that way and recommended a full-time superintendent.

But a handful of parents and staff at Thursday’s meeting knew exactly who might be able to take that job: Tomales Elementary School’s principal, Jim Patterson. Both Mr. Patterson and Nancy Wolf, now at Bodega Bay Elementary, left retirement last year to accept one-year, part-time principal positions.

Those parents and staff credited Mr. Patterson with uplifting the educational morale of a district struggling to rectify its financial woes—and suggested him as the best candidate for a principal-superintendent position.

They then called on him to accept another yearlong contract to return to Tomales Elementary.

“I could do one more year,” Mr. Patterson said. “But that’s it!”

Thursday’s meeting also saw the return of Scott Mahoney, a former superintendent in Ross and the consultant who is spearheading the search for Shoreline’s next leader. Mr. Mahoney was also hired by Shoreline in 2014 when the district sought to replace Mr. Stubbs, but was sidelined after an outcry from parents and teachers compelled the board to extend Mr. Stubbs’ contract one more year.

“I’m back to help you and your board discover a new superintendent, whoever that might be,” Mr. Mahoney said. “You had some very strong candidates who applied to be your superintendent last time. And you can attract lots of candidates depending on how much money you’re willing to pay.”

Drawing from a pair of meetings held in September and October with Shoreline employees and parents, Mr. Mahoney presented on Thursday a series of different possible administrative configurations, paired with job descriptions, pros and cons and salary costs.

A full-time superintendent, he estimated, would cost the district a baseline of $160,000 plus benefits, while part-time would run at $135,000, with benefits. The former would remain true for either a superintendent-special education director or a superintendent-principal. A full-time special education director, he guessed, would cost $80,000 and benefits.

Critics of costly full-time superintendent, principal and special education director salaries have pointed to the district’s ongoing deficit spending—at about $2,000 a year—as proof that Shoreline has little room to maneuver as its trustees move forward with hiring new administrators. But that financial burden could lighten over the next few years, depending on how much money Shoreline will receive in state funds tied to incoming transfer students—a self-appointed status called “district of choice.”

This year, the district will receive an estimated $400,000 in state funds for its district of choice status—and that amount is expected to grow, given the jump in inter-district transfers that Shoreline’s secretary, Jeannie Moody, has logged since summer.

Governor Jerry Brown has pledged to renew legislation establishing the district-of-choice model for another year, starting on Jan. 1, 2016. But according to Mr. Abbott, there is no way of knowing whether that legislation will continue into 2017, or be allowed to expire. 

“The big question for us is district of choice,” Mr. Abbott said. “If that gets reauthorized and is around for a while, it will make a big impact.”