It probably was too much to expect the Burbank Unified School
District board of directors to keep its word about any promises made
over the past few months, particularly given its abundant shenanigans
when David Aponik was terminated as superintendent in February.
This is, after all, the same school board whose members, by
conferring with one another outside of an announced public session,
essentially met secretly (read: illegally) to determine Aponik's
fate, then denied any such thing had happened.
It's the same school board that gave Aponik regular pay increases
over the course of two years, then dismissed him without so much as a
formal performance review any time during the same period.
And it's the same school board that announces a board agenda with
major policy decisions at 5 p.m. the Friday before a Monday emergency
meeting, knowing full well that people often can't change plans
quickly to make a meeting on short notice, even one about a big
issue.
Even so, with Greg Bowman's appointment on Monday as the
district's permanent superintendent, the board has reached a new
level of cynicism about its responsibilities, blatantly ignoring its
promise to the public to conduct an exhaustive search for a new
superintendent and include input from parents, teachers and other
community members in establishing criteria for a new school chief.
In doing so, the board -- not for the first time -- sent this
message: Go away, Burbank citizens. We don't care what you think, and
we'll do our jobs whatever way we see fit. So there.
This is not a knock on Bowman, who from all reports is a respected
administrator with a solid track record in the Glendale and Burbank
school districts, and who has scored points during his (very brief)
stint as interim BUSD superintendent by helping the board and its
budget committee make some tough decisions and get the 2002-03 budget
balanced.
Bowman seems like such a capable leader and decent guy, in fact,
that one almost wants to warn him off working for the Burbank school
board. But he wants to stay, something made apparent by the fact that
Bowman, after going ahead with initial interviews, withdrew his name
from consideration for other superintendent jobs in the region.
His hiring as a permanent replacement for Aponik -- who has gone
back to work for the district as a psychologist but who plans to sue
the district over his dismissal, according to his attorney -- follows
the same modus operandi of too many other board moves:
fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants desperation.
