ALLENTOWN, Pa. - Community members are raising concerns that the national search promised by the Allentown School Board after last year's ouster of former Superintendent John Stanford was simply lip service.
The board could vote on a new contract for interim Superintendent Carol Birks as soon as Thursday. Birks was appointed to the interim role last Oct. 27, just a day before Stanford left office. The only candidate interviewed for the job, Birks is being paid $850 a day.
- The Allentown School Board could offer Interim Superintendent Carol Birks a permanent job next week
- Latino leaders say their voices have been dismissed during the process
- The appointment could be made at Thursday's special school board meeting
Allentown School District Solicitor Jeffrey Sultanik said the district's national consultant, Micah Ali, advised the board to forgo a search, much less a national one, at a retreat last weekend. The attorney said seven of nine school board members were present and agreed, with Lisa Conover and Phoebe Harris absent.
Ali lists himself on his LinkedIn page as formerly on the Compton Unified School District Board of Education in California and a Fox News guest.
According to Sultanik, Ali said it was not worth doing a national search or a search at all because of a lack of top applicants nationwide.
Sultanik cited the district's hiring of Stanford as one reason not to conduct another comprehensive search.
"The literature is showing first of all that national searches are not yielding the kind of success they once did, " he said. "Issue number two, the current marketplace for superintendents is the thinnest it's been in decades. People don't want to do the job."
Feeling shut out
Guillermo Lopez Jr., a spokesman with the newly-formed Allentown Latino Education Coalition, said he was told by district leaders that they planned to move forward with hiring Birks permanently, despite the coalition's objections about feeling shut out of the process.
ASD Letter From ALEC Team by LVNewsdotcom on Scribd
"In spite of our many efforts and requests for greater transparency and inclusion in the hiring process," the group said in an emailed statement, "the board has made this decision without input from the community that it serves despite the instability that has plagued the position over the past decade."
The Allentown School Board fired Stanford by a 6-3 vote Oct. 20 of last year after a contentious public meeting.
Board members Conover, LaTarsha Brown and Patrick Palmer voted against approval of a separation agreement less than a year into Stanford's five-year contract. Current board members, including now-President Audrey Mathison and Vice President Nancy Wilt, voted in favor of it.
Lopez said the Allentown Latino Education Coalition started meeting with the board president and vice president in December. Mathison, who was elected board president in December, said at the time the board would discuss how to conduct a new search for a superintendent.
"Now that they didn't have a superintendent that was permanent," Lopez said. "We felt strongly that they should do a search. And allow members of our community to be part of that search."
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, more than 73% of students in the Allentown School District are Hispanic. The majority of teachers and staff in the district are white.
"The board has made this decision without input from the community that it serves despite the instability that has plagued the position over the past decade."Allentown Latino Education Coalition (ALEC), A National Puerto Rican Agenda PA project
Lopez said a wide-reaching search, which included members of his organization at the table, would be more transparent.
He said the coalition — it's made up of parents and several Latino leaders in the Lehigh Valley — worries the school district will potentially exacerbate feelings of mistrust between the school district and the Latino community.
Esther Lee, the president of the Bethlehem NAACP, said she was one of several community members who did not believe Birks was the best qualified for the interim position.
Lee and school board member Conover were just a few local NAACP members who protested Stanford's ouster. They also called for an audit of the school district.
Lee criticized Birks' hiring last fall.
“I would not have her over my children,” Lee said in November. “That’s the problem now. We take for granted that someone has degrees that they’re suitable.”
Vote set for Birks contract
Sultanik said Birks has already achieved "significant" successes, such as saving the school district money and achieving organizational efficiencies.
Lee said she questions the school district's lack of transparency.
"It's all being done at the risk of uneducating brown and Black students in the Allentown School District," she said.
Sultanik said the district plans to schedule a special meeting for this Thursday to vote on a new contract for Birks.
Mathison did not return a request for comment. Harris said she had no comment. Conover said she opposes the board's planned hire of Birks.
The Allentown Latino Education Coalition describes itself as a project of the National Puerto Rican Agenda advocacy group in Pennsylvania that seeks representation of Latinos on school boards, in management positions and in the classroom.
