The 1999 MoCo Board of Education Superintendent Search Fiasco. Same Search Firm as 2022.

A Talent Search Turned Sour

WHO COULD have predicted that the selection of a school superintendent in Montgomery County -- fabled home of Process-Above-All government -- would collapse the way it has this week? Elfreda W. Massie had almost run the complete credentials course -- emerging as the lone finalist in the eyes of the school board -- when her candidacy crumbled with cause. Out of the blue came revelations of personal bankruptcy filings that she had failed to disclose and that a hired recruiting firm had failed to uncover. Without waiting for the board to drop her from consideration, Ms. Massie wisely withdrew.

Regardless of how sympathetically residents might view her financial plight, her failure to bring it up until confronted with the news showed unacceptably poor judgment. But where was the recruiting firm, Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, in all this? Routine credit checks would have brought out this information in a flash. One explanation is that while these talent-hunter firms usually do run credit checks as a matter of routine on candidates for most high-profile state and local offices, they tend not to undertake costly rundowns of personal finances when it comes to posts in school systems. If so, the boards that select these selectors should insist on such checks as part of the service...

...Montgomery will have a new go at it, and at least one change in the process should be made without question: From now on, credit checks should be automatic.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1999/05/08/a-talent-search-turned-sour/bb2afc39-4237-4517-8b8c-3b173d914176/

Jack R. Smith Now Works for Same Search Firm Handling @mocoboe Superintendent Search #SmallWorld

Whenever the Montgomery County Board of Education needs a new superintendent they hire the same search firm.

Hazard, Young and Attea has been the search for for the Board of Education since at least 1999.  

Former Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Jack R. Smith now works for Hazard, Young, and Attea as a consultant.  

From Smith's bio: 

...He then served as Superintendent of Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland for the next five years, overseeing a multi-billion-dollar budget, and guiding the school system through the COVID-19 pandemic as well as other complex and difficult situations. Additionally, he worked with staff to develop the Be Well 365 system to support student well being. He also designed and implemented an equity and achievement framework to increase access and opportunity and support learning for historically underserved populations...

https://hyasearch.com/profile/jack-smith/

Instead of a puff of white smoke, announce the superintendent finalists.

The Montgomery County Board of Education could demonstrate that it does give "a rat's patootie about what we think" if instead of a puff of white smoke, it announced the superintendent finalists and even provided a public forum for all the stakeholders to hear the finalists.

Hazard, Young and Attea (the no bid search firm selected by BOE President Patricia O'Neill) used such a process for selecting the new superintendent for Boston Public Schools and described that process at the public hearing last week at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda.

I encourage everyone to attend the Tuesday March 10, 2015 Public Forum, to ask about hearing from the superintendent finalists before the final selection - and to advocate for Gifted and Talented education in the local schools.

For your convenience, here is a link to a recent Boston Globe story describing that Hazard-Boston Public Schools superintendent search:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/ metro/2015/03/01/boston-final- candidates-for-superintendent/ KMSVLigUArPkTeIt5TUqgO/story. html

While there are very good reasons for a confidential (secret) selection process, I think the following considerations carry the day to choose to reveal the finalists and perhaps even invite them to a public forum: 
1. The selected superintendent will start day one building on unfiltered, transparent access from everyone. 
2. The Board of Education will demonstrate transparency and cooperation based on genuine trust of the stakeholders 
3. MCPS will avoid the Hazard-Board of Education mistake of 1999 (where the BOE's first announcement was the selection of Dr. Massie who then was forced to withdraw within days of that announcement) 
4. The BOE will be transparent like the Montgomery County Council selection process was  following a recent resignation.
 
Sheldon Fishman
Founding Member of Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, MD
Parent of 4 MCPS Graduates

Back in 1999, Same Search Firm Found Candidate with Bankruptcies, Candidate Immediately Withdrew

Massie Withdraws As School Candidate
Montgomery Board Searching Again
By Manuel Perez-Rivas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 6, 1999; Page B01

Elfreda W. Massie bowed out yesterday as Montgomery County's leading candidate for school superintendent, just two days after revelations of her personal bankruptcy filings stunned school board members and threw her candidacy into a tailspin.

Massie, currently the number two school administrator in Baltimore County, was nominated Friday to succeed Montgomery Superintendent Paul L. Vance, whose term ends June 30. She was widely praised over the weekend as a well-qualified and enthusiastic educator who would ably lead Montgomery's school system, with its $1 billion budget, into the next century.
Civic, government and educational leaders anticipated meeting Massie in Rockville this week to learn about her educational vision.

But those meetings were canceled. Instead, Massie came to Montgomery to attend a private, late-night meeting Tuesday with the school board at the home of board President Reginald M. Felton (Northeastern County). During the meeting, Massie discussed the circumstances of her and her husband's two bankruptcy filings -- the most recent one last June -- and attempted to explain why she had not warned school board members before they endorsed her. It was not enough, however, to save her candidacy...

...Felton said the board had directed the firm conducting the search, Illinois-based Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, to find new candidates for consideration and to "strengthen the background and financial review of potential candidates."
 
Despite mounting criticism over the secrecy with which the board has conducted the search to date, Felton reaffirmed that members remain "committed to the search process underway at this time as the best method of identifying and selecting candidates for consideration as superintendent."
The board had been criticized by many in Montgomery's active educational circles for not giving the community a larger role in reviewing candidates, even before the revelations of Massie's personal financial problems derailed the process this week. Some said the board's stance was especially disheartening considering its stated support for collaborative decision-making...

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/daily/june99/massie6.htm