School Board Extends Superintendent's Contract

Dr. Ridder's Contract Extension Through 2013-14


Last Tuesday, the Springfield Board of Education voted unanimously to extend Superintendent Norm Ridder's contract through the 2013-14 school year.


Vote of Confidence


This is a nice vote of confidence from the school board, and is perhaps an answer to recent articles that exposed some disparities in the issuance of "quiet" stipends to administrators during salary freezes to teachers and other employees. The disparity in salaries is endemic to all public school systems, but the issuing of stipends for "additional duties" - and having those stipends approved by one board officer, separate from regularly scheduled public meetings - seemed to be clear evidence of an established norm of favoritism toward already well-paid administrators over those that work daily in the classrooms. Board members made no public statements about this, but it's a fair assumption that most of them were clueless that new administrative stipends had been issued. Apparently, there were no objections from the board to either the stipends or the manner in which they were approved.

Airing Out Teacher Salaries and Stipends

In reacting to recent unfavorable news stories and editorials, Dr. Ridder chose to broadcast, via email, all teacher salaries and stipends to parents and teachers in the community - which seemed to expose an incredible insensitivity to how this might be perceived by 1,800 hard-working educators in the district. It's one thing for a news reporter to print public information as part of a story that exposes very real disparities in how administration and teachers are compensated for extra duties. It's quite another for the employer, as an act of defensiveness, to broadcast employee salaries. It was an ill-conceived reaction that only served to highlight clear disparities and raised questions about the motivation for such an extraordinary response. While throwing teachers under bus has been great sport of late for media talking heads and pseudo-reformers with their own political agendas, we expect more of our own superintendent.

Trusting the Educator

Still, the fact that Dr. Ridder has a good working relationship with the elected school board is a fundamental, critical piece for any superintendent, and Dr. Ridder now knows that he has their unequivocal support moving forward. However, based on our daily interactions with teachers across the district over the past five years, Dr. Ridder still has a lot of work to do when it comes to improving district relations with the educators in our school district. Perhaps the shake-up at the administrative level and the expected increase in building/teacher autonomy in 2011-12 will provide an opportunity for improvement. Perhaps a leaner administration will be forced to invest more effort in trusting their professional educators to do their jobs well - without excessive interruptions, distractions and obstacles from administrators that were beginning to behave more and more like bureaucrats in a large corporation rather than educator leaders.

Outsourcing District Representation

During Dr. Ridder's tenure, many positive steps have been taken in support of teachers in the classroom (smartboards, data warehouse, emphasis on formative assessment). But he has also imposed a weathered data-driven business model (CQI/CCI) that has been time consuming and costly to implement - and has proven to be only marginally successful at some sites. He has chosen to emphasize smooth relations with community leaders and his school board while occasionally waving a hand of recognition to teachers along the way. And - perhaps the clearest indicator of how teachers are viewed - he has farmed out district representation at the bargaining table to a third-party attorney who charges an hourly rate and has absolutely no stake in fostering better relations between professional educators and district leadership. [We recall that when Dr. Ridder visited Lincoln, Nebraska last year as one of seven finalists to lead that district, he was one of only two who indicated he would not participate in bargaining. Neither got the job.]

Moving Forward

So, we congratulate Dr. Ridder for the contract extension and hope that he will remain open to exploring innovations to improve our district in its charge to educate the children of our community. In our opinion, that's one of his strong points . . . along with being personable, open to discussion on virtually any subject and, at times, painfully honest. We hope that he will be willing to explore more openness, more trust, and a freer exchange of information with professional educators in our district, who have consistently performed to a high standard for many years.