More time to join superintendent search

The Newport-Mesa Unified School District has extended the deadline to apply for the superintendent search-advisory council, giving parents and community members until Monday to submit their names..

Earlier this month, the district invited residents to submit their names to the committee, with the members to be chosen by random selection at Tuesday’s board meeting. Originally, the district named Feb. 17 as the deadline for submissions, but this week it moved the date to Monday.

The 45-member advisory council, which will conduct the superintendent search in March and April, includes spots for 10 parent representatives and seven residents who do not have a child at Newport-Mesa schools. School board member Dana Black said that with the extended deadline, she hoped to get a wider cross-section of the community.

“We’re really lucky,” she remarked. “We have lots of people who want input and we saw there was a lag time this week.”

Fellow board member Serene Stokes said the extra 10 days benefited the Corona del Mar zone, which she oversees, since the zone held its regular monthly meeting with school principals, PTA members and other teachers and parents the day before Presidents’ Recess.

“From our zone alone, I think we got four additional people to apply,” she said.

Board members could not say how many applications the district had received for the 17 spots on the council. The week after the board began inviting submissions, administrative-services coordinator Laura Boss said she had received 32 forms.

After the board draws the names at its Tuesday meeting, those selected will join representatives from the Harbor Council PTA, Newport-Mesa Schools Foundation and other groups to seek a new superintendent. Most of the groups represented on the council will appoint their own members, rather than have the school board draw them by lot.

Superintendent Robert Barbot, Newport-Mesa’s leader since 1998, plans to retire at the end of June. The district is scheduled to interview the final candidates for his replacement in April and appoint the new superintendent in May.

A number of prominent members of the Newport-Mesa education community have already expressed a desire to apply for the council, including former school-board member Wendy Leece, Measure F campaign chairman Mark Buchanan and Newport Elementary School PTA president René Powers.

Among the other citizens who have submitted their names is Douglas Bader, a Costa Mesa environmental activist who leased the Measure F campaign its headquarters. Bader said his ideal superintendent would be one who had studied other cultures around the world and knew their educational systems.

“I think it’s a worthy and valid use of time to help peruse what a leader says they’re going to do,” he explained. “It really is exciting, in my opinion, to actualize the best models in the world.”