Having Tony Sanders as the chief executive officer in Elgin School District U46 was to be a temporary arrangement, just until the U46 board could go through the lengthy, laborious and expensive process of hiring a new permanent superintendent. But some board members on both sides of the board’s ideological divide hinted Monday that they might be happy to keep that temporary arrangement going for as long as possible.
A year has passed since Jose Torres announced he was resigning as U46 superintendent to become president of the Illinois Math and Science Academy. Soon after that, the U46 board set up an arrangement by which Sanders, then the chief of staff, would run the giant district’s day-to-day operations with the title chief executive officer. Retired Community Unit School District 300 Superintendent Kenneth Arndt, who has the official state school superintendent certification that Sanders lacks, would become a part-time superintendent. Arndt would be more of a figurehead than a day-to-day leader, signing official papers and overseeing particular jobs that under state law require a superintendent’s credentials in return for a salary based on the number of days he actually works.
When board members last discussed when they should search for a new superintendent last fall, they decided to wait until after the April elections had potentially changed the board’s makeup. And the elections did just that, bringing four new members to the seven-person board. But the superintendent issue was not raised again until Monday, when board member Veronica Noland asked what the board wanted to do.
Board President Donna Smith said that when Torres was hired, the district asked for proposals from head-hunting firms in September, chose a firm in November and began interviewing candidates over the winter, with the person chosen to start his duties over the summer between school years.
“But what we are doing now is perfectly legal,”‘ Smith added.
“So we could keep doing this?” asked Noland, whose term had not expired this spring.
“Indefinitely?” newly elected board member Jeanette Ward asked.
More Top Picks Footprints Tents
“It is legal and fine,” Smith said.
In fact, Smith said, the Chicago Public Schools use a similar CEO arrangement, and Arndt also filled in as a superintendent in District 300 for awhile while its incoming superintendent was finishing up his state credentials and going by the title of CEO.
“Dr. Arndt and Tony do work very well together,” Noland said.
“Tony is doing a good job. Everybody speaks highly of him,” said Ward.
“Our decision should start with whether we want to pay for a search firm,” said board member Traci O’Neal Ellis, who was on the board before the election and was re-elected.
Smith said executive search firms seem to charge about $24,000 to $75,000 to find superintendent candidates, plus any travel costs and miscellaneous expenses.
Ward said that if Sanders is working out well as a CEO and Arndt’s guiding hand keeps things legal, she questions whether it would be worth the cost of searching elsewhere for a new leader.
Board members finally agreed to talk about the issue again in September.
Sanders said after the meeting that he lacks the education and experience of being a classroom teacher and school principal that normally are required to qualify for an Illinois school superintendent’s certification. Sanders said state officials have approved setting up an “alternative path” to becoming a superintendent that would involve other training and experience as a school administrator. But so far, he said, the Illinois State Board of Education has not approved any university or other organization to confer such certification.
Arndt attends almost all school board meetings and meetings of U46’s administrative cabinet. But while Sanders presides along with Smith over the board meetings, sitting at the center of the board desk, Arndt sits in the audience among a gaggle of assistant superintendents, program directors, principals and other employees. Arndt almost never makes any comment during the board meetings.
In a physical move that may symbolize how untemporary Tony Sanders’ leadership has become, a photo portrait of him was added recently to a display showing U46’s past superintendents along a hallway just outside the board meeting room.
Under contracts ratified last August, Sanders is paid a base salary of $210,000 a year, plus benefits, so long as he remains CEO. Arndt gets $650 per day he works, with no benefits and a maximum of 100 work days per year.
Sanders joined the district in 2007 as its director of communications. He previously worked for the St. Louis Public Schools as a chief communications officer and also as a consultant for several education firms. He also had served as acting director for governmental relations and public information for the Illinois State Board of Education, and has more than a decade of experience in leadership positions for several Illinois agencies, including the Department of Professional Regulation and the Department of Public Health.