Second of two parts
Re “Mielke on Jaffe’s Chances: Why Not Hire One of Our Own?”
The most significant meeting since Patty Jaffe was hired two months ago as Stopgap Superintendent of the School District is scheduled for late this afternoon at Irving Place headquarters.
Two weeks to the day after reaching agreement with a headhunting firm in the Bay Area known as the Cosca Group, School Board members will be prepped by Cosca on how the search for a successor will proceed across the next several months.
However, the previously unclouded picture of the future developed an instant, intriguing mist on the eve of the meeting yesterday. Although the widely liked Ms. Jaffe officially was eliminated as contender in June for the permanent job by terms of her contract, Board member Scott Zeidman raised the possibility Ms. Jaffe could transcend those arbitrary hurdles by dint of her impressive work during the interim.
Where Momentum Counts
What is the mood of the Board? Given Mr. Zeidman’s sphere of influence and the fact that Board President Steve Gourley frequently votes the same way, this may be a Lola moment for the Board, as in Whatever Lola wants…
“The next step is interviewing people,” said the Vice President of the Board, adding that members do not have a choice. “We have to see what is out there. I am anxious to meet people. Actual interviews won’t start for quite awhile. We don’t even know what we are looking for. We have to sit down and figure out what the Board wants, what the community wants, what we need and then make a decision.
“I will know much more after the meeting.
“There was always a concern that if you bring in an interim person, she or he will sit around and do nothing, or check the boxes that need to be checked. Patty Jaffe stayed at a City Council meeting until 1 in the morning just to speak to the Council on behalf of the Board.
“She has gone way beyond what anyone could have expected,” Mr. Zeidman said, and that is why a large ball of momentum seems to be rolling in her favor as a new school year gets under way.
Next in Line
The President of the 350-member Teachers Union, David Mielke, is one of Ms. Jaffe’s most powerful boosters, and that can only help er toward landing the permanent Super position, if she wants it. Until Dr. Myrna Rivera Cote suddenly resigned three months ago, this was going to be the first summer of Ms. Jaffe’s retirement from a 40-year career.
“When she was selected as the Interim, the perfectly logical thing to do,” Mr. Mielke told the newspaper, “I got up in front of the Board and said, ‘Isn’t this great? And you’ll have an opportunity to see how she does. If she does well, then you can keep her on,’ like any normal business.
“Then they said to me later they told her she only could be the Interim. Or she could only be a candidate. Not both.
“You may quote me,” Mr. Mielke continued. “That is nuts. If you have someone who is Interim and good, you keep the person. If the person is not good, you don’t. Honestly, I don’t know what the Board was thinking.
“But,” he added with emphasis, “it does give me pause that these are the people making decisions. This is how they would operate. Any reasonable group of people in this situation, I would think, would say ‘Isn’t this great? You can be the Interim. If it goes well, the job is yours.’
“It really gives me pause.
“The other thing I will say is that when the Board members were thinking of hiring Patty didn’t ask for the unions’ input in any meaningful way. They just said, ‘How much should we pay this person?’ I wrote back and said, ‘Why don’t you involve the unions in the whole process? We work here, for your employee.’ And, of course, that hasn’t happened.”
Rhetorically, Mr. Mielke asked, “Why wouldn’t they bring us in?”
Why not?
“They don’t want input from their employees,” he said.
“We have not done anything systematic, but teachers who have contacted me are all in her camp. She has made a lot of friends in 40 years. The prevailing opinion is, ‘Look, she is capable, she is hard-working, she is one of us.’
“Y’know, it’s kind of a no-brainer.”
