Elgin School District U46 has extended Chief Executive Officer Tony Sanders’ contract for three years and added one year to Kenneth Arndt’s contract as part-time interim superintendent.
As the contracts were approved by the school board Monday night, praise was reigning on Sanders’ performance as the district’s de facto boss over the past seven months.
Because of state rules, whether Sanders himself could become the new superintendent could be out of the school board’s hands. Board members aren’t saying whether they are thinking about keeping him on with the title of CEO until he earns the credentials need to be superintendent.
Sanders’ new contract goes into effect on July 1 and continues through June 30, 2018. It say that for as long as Sanders continues as CEO, he will get a 2.75 percent pay raise each summer added to the $210,000 salary he has been getting this school year unless the school board decides not to add that raise. However, the contract also states that when and if a new superintendent starts work, Sanders will return to his old job as chief of staff, with a lower salary.
The superintendent’s job at the state’s second-biggest school district became vacant when Jose Torres resigned last August to become president of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. At that time Sanders was the district’s chief of staff after having served several years as its director of school-community relations.
As Torres left, the board-of-education members decided they wanted Sanders to lead the district until a superintendent could be picked.
But they discovered Sanders did not have all the experience, training and testing the state requires of school superintendents. So in September they gave Sanders the new title “chief executive officer,” with a bigger salary. They also hired Kenneth Arndt, a retired former superintendent of Community Unit School District 300, as interim superintendent on a part-time, as-needed basis. Arndt was assigned to advise Sanders and perform certain duties related to things such as finance and curriculum that the state allows to be done only by someone certified to be a superintendent.
A few months later, the board voted to postpone searching for a permanent new superintendent until after the April 7 election. With five of the board’s seven seats up for re-election, members explained, the election could change the philosophy of the board so much that they didn’t feel right hiring a new superintendent until after the election.
In the months since then, Sanders clearly has been the district’s day-to-day leader. Weekly commentaries and official opinions to employees about controversial topics that formerly had been sent out under the name of Jose Torres now come signed by Tony Sanders. Sanders helps run the board meetings, sitting alongside Board President Donna Smith in the seat formerly occupied by Torres.
Arndt attends every board meeting but sits in the audience alongside the assistant superintendents and department heads. He almost never speaks during such meetings.
Sanders said Arndt also attends every meeting of the superintendent’s “cabinet,” a conference of the district’s top leaders. And in thanking the board and his fellow employees for his new contract Monday, Sanders referred to Arndt as his “coach.”
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Arndt’s new contract as interim superintendent is good for only one year, June 30 through July 1, 2016. Like the first pact, it calls for him to work no more than 100 days per year and to be paid $650 for each day he works.
Sanders’ new contract passed the board by a 6-1 vote. Casting the only “no,” Board Member Veronica Noland said she has no objection to keeping Sanders as CEO. “I have heard only positive feedback from all corners of the district” about Sanders’ leadership, Noland said, and “I’m hoping to have you guiding us for another year as we search for a new superintendent.” But Noland said she opposes guaranteeing that Sanders could stay through 2018 as chief of staff, since a newly hired superintendent might want to choose a different chief of staff.
Noland is one of three current board members, along with Smith and the re-elected Traci O’Neal Ellis, who will be staying on the board as it makes the superintendent decision.
“You have done a fine job with this transition,” Board Member Linda Campos-Moreira, who did not run for re-election, agreed.
“You have led the district admirably through this transition and have done a yeoman’s job,” said another departing board member, Amy Kerber. “I’ve heard nothing but praise from our parents and students. And most importantly our staff feel very secure with you at the helm.”
Smith said that since hiring Sanders and Arndt, “we are almost at the end of another school year and we have moved forward instead of remaining stable.”
On a questionnaire submitted to the U46 Citizens Advisory Council last month, board candidate Jeanette Ward, who later won a seat in the election, said she was “not necessarily opposed to Tony Sanders becoming the superintendent, for continuity’s sake and because he has shown himself to be a reasonable person who considers all points of view. In lieu of Tony, I would look for someone who has successfully run a district of this size.”
When board members postponed the superintendent search, they said they expect it to take a full year from the time they start deciding what kind of superintendent they want until the new person can take office. The newly elected members will be seated during the board’s next meeting, on May 4, and Smith said she expects that all seven will start talking about the superintendent situation at the following meeting, on May 18.
Arndt also played a role in what could turn out to have been a similar situation in District 300 last year. After District 300 Superintendent Michael Bregy resigned, that school board wanted to make Fred Heid superintendent. But Heid did not have quite all the qualifications to be certified by the state to be a superintendent. So District 300 made Heid CEO and brought back the retired Arndt to be its interim superintendent until Heid completed his training and testing and could take over officially as the new superintendent.