Maria Hegstad, The Examiner
2007-06-28 07:00:00.0
Current rank: # 3,364 of 8,366

Alexandria -

Alexandria’s school board reaffirmed an earlier vote to proceed with a search for a new superintendent after hearing hours of heated comments Tuesday.

Tuesday’s 5-4 tally fell along the same lines as the original May 21 vote not to extend Superintendent Rebecca Perry’s contract after it expires in June 2008. The first vote was taken before Perry’s performance evaluation and without public comment. Some of the board members in the minority complained of backroom politics, saying they were not given the advance notice of the vote they believe is required by Virginia law.

“Superintendents should be judged on their results, not on personality traits or style,” member Sheryl Gorsuch said after requesting the new board vote.

The board members in the minority explained why they felt the original process had been flawed before voting, while Yvonne Folkerts and Blanche Maness emotionally defended their votes to seek a new superintendent.

“Personnel decisions are never easy,” Folkerts said. “The reality is that change happens and that change can bring progress.”

The board “showed very poor leadership in handling … what you knew would be a lightning rod issue,” said parent Chris Campagna, one of about 50 residents who assailed or praised the board before it voted around midnight Tuesday. “The adult thing to do would be to step back and say, ‘We made a mistake.’ ”

The board also received two petitions with several hundred signatures, one supporting its vote and one protesting it.

“It is your job and your job only to make this decision,” parent Priscilla Goodwin told the board.

Goodwin and some other parents disagreed with what they saw as Perry’s preoccupation with Virginia’s Standards of Learning test over academic rigor. Other speakers blamed such policies on federal legislation, not Perry.

Other speakers assailed Perry for being divisive. The issue of her tenure was last before the school board after she pleaded guilty to a drunken driving charge in 2004. Eight of those nine board members decided not to stand for re-election in 2006.

“The reason we voted to keep [Perry] was she was the best damn superintendent we could find,” Sally Ann Baynard, who served on the board for nine years, said Tuesday. “It’s hard to get good ones.”

mhegstad@dcexaminer.com