Tuesday, June 06, 2000
School audit chance for fresh start
COVINGTON — Good news for Covington schools: The superintendent has quit just as his faults were becoming unbearably apparent.
At the same time, state officials are conducting one of their legendary audits, which promises to lay bare the district's shortcomings.
This presents the school board with a rich opportunity. I have seen these audits before.
They are tough, objective and thorough.
Best of all, they usually include a timeline for corrective action, which the board can use to break through internal politics and inertia.
The board meets tonight to talk about choosing a new superintendent. My advice: Replace James Kemp with an interim leader who will embrace the audit and carry out its recommendations.
This person should get a nine-month contract. That way, the board would be choosing a permanent superintendent in March, which is a good time. Top candidates around the country are more likely to be mobile in the spring, and the November board elections will be over.
Problems hinted at
The state audit is due out in a few weeks. We already have an inkling of the problems from Robyn Oatley, a state official who found uninspired teaching and chaotic classrooms when she visited last spring. To expand on her memo, state employees have spent days poring over financial documents, interviewing local educators and observing classrooms.
For all its problems, Covington is better off than many districts reviewed by the state. Board members are genuinely interested in improving education, even if they disagree on how to do it. This spring, they and Dr. Kemp invited the state to do its audit, which is extraordinary in itself.
More typically, local school officials are too proud, stubborn or crooked to tolerate state assistance. In several cases, Kentucky's education commissioner has been forced to remove such people from office.
I lived in Eastern Kentucky when the Letcher County school district was audited in 1994.
Letcher's problems
Letcher's homebound program had become a dumping ground for difficult students, who saw tutors once a week if they were lucky.
The school board was paying $45,000 a year to a powerful local attorney whose wife also worked for the system.
No one could say exactly what the attorney was doing for the money.
Then there was the district's suspicious coal contract with a local man, who said he knew nothing about it. Authorities suspected a board member was profiting from the arrangement.
Under state law, the education commissioner can take over districts with a pattern of “ineffective or inefficient” administration. This happened in Letcher and in Floyd County, where schools lacked supplies, computers and textbooks.
Despite its financial problems, the Floyd district had far too many teachers, which smacked of the patronage network that can dominate poor counties.
In rural Kentucky, the education reform act forced elected officials to put children first or face removal.
This won't be necessary in Covington. Board members have disagreed about Dr. Kemp, but they have done so with the district's interests at heart.
Now that Dr. Kemp is leaving, they should embrace state assistance. It is a neutral but tough agent of change.
Karen Samples can be reached at (859) 578-5584 or ksamples@enquirer.com.
