DISTRICT 172 KABUKI PLAY: PERSONNEL RULE ONE--DON'T PUT YOUR BUSINESS IN THE STREET
Disclaimer first: Lonny Lemon is a friend. Tom Dickerson is a friend. Thus, when I comment on their public behavior, I mean no disrespect. This is just a fascinating case study.
Added Disclaimer Second (Sunday March 2): I am starting to surmise that the only explanation is that these folks never talked about salary requirements and expectations before sometime on Friday. If that's true, it's a damn shame that there wasn't some time and space between whatever the initial offer was and the applicant's response. This is big boy, life-changing decision stuff for both sides. A sunrise or two couldn't have hurt anything.
First, how did they get to "finalist" stage without having a general discussion of the applicant's salary requirements?
Second, after they met, why didn't they get their stories straight? The initial story out of the board was that they had met and they were going to go over all their options. Later, it came out that they had actually met with LLemon. OK, fine. From here, there's two possiblities. He told them straight out that it wasn't enough money. That's one possibility. The other is that they shot him a figure and he called later and told them "No Thanks".
In the first instance, the Board would have a need to prove they did something and Lonny would need an affirmation they found him worthy of the job. Simple, they just release a joint statement that they tendered the job to him and they couldn't get together on terms. Simple.
Really, the second possibility should get the same result. Again, Lonny should be thinking about this next job application. Hard to become a finalist when there's a possibility you'll call the place at which you apply a cheapskate by implication. The Board, again, needs to show it did something, but needs to show it's holding the line on salaries. So, if Lonny called this one in, there still should have been an agreement on what would be said publicly. The way it played out, it looked like the Board initially was going to keep to themselves the notion that they had offered the job to Lonny. That would have been unacceptable to Lonny. Then it looked like Lonny, in an effort to demonstrate, truthfully, that he wasn't rejected, told his long form version of the story. Once that happened, the Board had to make its own long form explanation.
My topic here is not whether it was a good idea for the Board to hire Lonny (I can't imagine any school system who wouldn't be proud to have him) or for Lonny to decline (Hell, it's his career, his life and the job is no day at the beach.). It's certainly not the Board's process, which seems to me to have been thorough. It's the way the publicity side of this has been handled. I think both sides could have done better. I also think Lonny hurt himself by saying too much. Finally, I hope I'm wrong because I wish him nothing but the best.
All in all, yesterday was a curious Friday.
posted by UMRBlog @ 08:23
21 comments
21 Comments:
You knew they were going to try to get Lonny to take the hometown discount. I wonder what he would have done if O'Donnell had still been in play.
You won't find a nicer man than Lonny Lemon. I don't know if he would have had the stomach for the bloody mess fixing this district is going to be. I think the next superintendent is going to have to be a Gary Blade-like throwback. It's going to get worse before it gets better.
Speaking of O'Donnell, his pullout looks strange as well. You're telling me Tom Dickerson, a man in his professional position, can go six days without checking his e-mail? In this day and age? Really?
That's something I would expect from Bud.
Can you explain yourself on the six day email thing. I am not picking up on your point there. It's quite possible I missed something in the newspaper. I was both sick and out of town some this week.
TYFCB
I believe O'Donnell e-mailed his "thanks, but no thanks" to Dickerson last Saturday and Dickerson told The Whig he did not see the e-mail until last Wednesday.
So I guess it was five days. My bad.
No, I wasn't quibbling the days. I totally missed that delay.
I think we'd have to know which email O'Donnell was responding to. Quite sure TD doesn't use the same email for his public service and private business. Could be an innocent explanation but still a good catch.
TYFCB
A guy in Dickerson's business and public position should check all e-mail accounts at least once a day. It is a 24/7 world we live in.
If you vant to be left alone, don't run for school board.
That being said, O'Donnell probably should have picked up the phone and called Dickerson. His cell phone plan probably has free nights and weekends.
If O'Donnell sent to an e-addy that doesn't pop up on Dickerson's PDA because he didn't want any interactive discussion, it kinda puts a different light on it.
But I don't want to get too far off my original topic.
Why no joint press release here? Woulda been good for everybody.
Instead we're left with Lonny saying he hopes the door isn't closed and Dickerson saying Lonny's taken his name out of consideration. That's a non-starter for both sides.
TYFCB
This is not only a local problem, but a national problem with school districts.
Why we pretend that we are the only district that is financially strapped puzzles me.
Having said that,common sense does sometimes seem to be lacking occassionally.
Lonny was looking for a painful, but lucrative, feather in his cap. O'Donnell was looking to pad his nest egg, as well. O'Donnell saw the writing on the wall and easily figured out that if they were jerking him around before they even hired him it was only going to get worse once they did. At his age it wasn't worth it. That left Lonny who no longer had any competition, so the illustrious Board low-ball, chump-changed him. Lonny did the right thing and told them go fuck themselves. Lonny may have said too much and it may hurt him in the short-term, but the Board, once again, proved their incompetence and left the District 172 taxpayers hanging. How sad for everyone and I wonder where the new Board saviors were on this one?
P.S. I don't know either Lonny or Tom D.
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=School_Superintendent/Salary/by_City
I found that at FIRE ....... interesting read
Just for clarity, I'm not much interested in the merits of how much. I'm sure Lonny did his Market Research.
My amazement is that both sides didn't arrive at a public information strategy that didn't bloody either one of them much. The way the commentary came out, there were no winners.
I mean I'll post comments about price or process but that's not really the discussion I was looking for.
Thanks all for coming by.
Okay, UMRB, fair enough. Posts get hijacked too easily. Here's a guess. Both sides were surprised and pissed at the other's tactics, demands, ultimate decision. Therefore, the gloves are off, but for "professionalism's" sake they put on their smiley faces for the Whig, but there are hard feelings all around. We've already seen Dickerson's propensity for talking too much in the Letters to the Editor, so no surprise there. Perhaps, Lonny, despite what he said publicly, already knows that this bridge is burned and had little to lose by talking too much.
All conjecture, of course.
1847,
Here's the problem I have with your reasoning. Lemon's a smart guy. He knows all these Board members go to the same training and convention opportunities. By implicitly calling a big district a cheapskate, he makes it difficult for himself to get into the finals for the next bigger job he seeks.
No matter how much "My way or the highway" the board might have done, it was still in both sides' interests to be singing off the same page of the hymn book. The Board has not shown any public relations genius lately but this one should have been pretty easy. They had a community of interest in parting amicably. Instead, it looks like the applicant is screaming "low ball!" and the Board is saying "You're fired before you're hired!"
Amazing, lose-lose.
TYFCB
I can't speak for Lonny's intellect. So, we have to assume, unless you have access to one of them for clarification, that neither of them could help but run their mouth. I guess we'll see how it turns out for each. I could see it being re-offered to Lonny before it's over with, but maybe not. More egg on the Board' face wouldn't be noticeable.
TYFCB,
Appreciate your input.
What the taxpayers of #172 saw last Friday was just the tip of the iceberg of the management style of the current administration at 1441 Maine. It funnels down to the day to day operations and school management too. Constantly changing curriculums with unclear goals by inexperienced administrators means loss of both money and precious teaching time.
This Board missed a great opportunity to take District 172 in a new direction in positive manner. I don’t understand how professional people could blunder so badly in such a public way. Supposedly they all finally came together and then blew it. Another opportunity lost.
Leadership is certainly lacking!!
It's sad!!
I think I've been dismissed.
Fred 0914,
Oh, no! I just couldn't add anything to your thought and wanted to acknowledge someone actually staying on the thread's topic. You are very welcome here and thoroughly undismissed.
TYFCB
No hard feelings, just was making an (incorrect) observation. Anyway, you know how when you (UMRB) know something that you can't talk about? Well, boy, do I wish I could unload what I know about this. I know, that's a teaser. I don't know Lonny, but I do know someone that does know him well. Oh, the stories they can tell! I,unfortunately, have agreed to the "between you and me" contract when being filled in. However, although Lonny is not 100% fault free here, your bets for major screwing up should on 172.
TFHMB (Thanks For Having Me By)
Hey Fred, I'll listen...
I bet you would! I can't, though. If I were to break my vow of silence I wouldn't get any more juicy tidbits from my "source". It'll all come out eventually and none of it, despite the "juicy" comment above, is all that titillating, but it is telling and further evidence of 172's Board's issues.
However, in the same breath, I never did get a good, believable explanation of Anderson's buyout, so maybe it won't come out in the end. We'll see. I'm just glad that my kids don't go there.
Fred said, "I could see it being re-offered to Lonny before it's over..."
Told ya soooooooooo!!!!!!!!!
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