"Leadership is action, not position."
By Dick Gale, SDEA Executive Director

The envelope arrived with 41¢ postage from zip code area 92103. The return address said Board of Education- San Diego Unified School District. It had a label addressed to me and the Board Members of SDEA. Inside was a personal, formal invitation to participate in the SDUSD Superintendent Search.

Scheduled for 6 p.m.-7 p.m. on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at the Education Center, SDEA, the union representing more than 8,000 District employees and nearly 50% of the total District budget, was being given 60 minutes to "share your thoughts on the Superintendent Leadership Criteria."

We at SDEA have had a lot of thoughts in the wake of the announcement of Dr. Carl Cohn's resignation as District Superintendent effective at the end of 2007. Foremost among them are a gnawing sense of unrealized accomplishment and pensiveness for where we might have come together.

Carl Cohn came out of retirement two years ago to take on the leadership of the second largest school district in the state of California. He brought with him a reputation as being an astute, decent, and humanistic administrator with no fear of delegating responsibilities to those whom he hired to represent his vision. Indeed, he stated bluntly, "it's easy to be uperintendent of a large urban local if you're not a control freak."

Our work with Dr. Cohn since 2005 has largely validated this perception of
him. He is a man who knows and values public education and understands the complexities involved in making the myriad decisions necessary to keep all the District's moving parts in alignment and working smoothly. His criticism of NCLB was deeply felt and he was an articulate foe of those who promoted any number of schemes to dismantle or discredit our public schools.

Cohn sought to bury the antagonisms that had been stirred up for years by his predecessor. Under Cohn's watch, the state of siege felt by many of
our bargaining unit members at their sites has dissipated. The number of grievances filed by SDEA against principals and central office administration has declined dramatically. From the top, hostility toward SDEA has been replaced by respect.

However, there is a sense that much more needs to be done. While Carl Cohn used his position to set a different tone, his hands-off style of decision-making left room for contradictory messages. Further, his failure to move decisively and take action to lead the Board into a fundamental understanding of their role as guardians of the District's priorities left many
with a sense that the District was simply adrift.

As Donald McGannon, former president and chairman of the board of Westinghouse Broadcasting Corporation and the National Urban League, stated in the quotation above, there is more to leadership than simply occupying a position of responsibility and authority.

For example, it was under Dr. Cohn's administration that SDEA and SDUSD jointly prepared and presented training in shared decision-making to District principals and association representatives (ARs). But, it was also under this administration that less-than-capable, unresponsive leadership continued to be tolerated at sites and within programs.

Similarly, in the past two years, salary increases for SDEA bargaining unit members have been slightly higher than the average for teachers and certificated support staff in San Diego County. Yet, at the same time, during the past two years the percentage of the total District budget going to teacher salaries has continued to decline (see graph on page 5).

As one of our SDEA Board members wrote, "what we need is someone who is going to get a handle on the District office side and let the educators have some time to do their work. The folks at my school who are finally feeling like they don't have someone constantly breathing down their necks are wanting to continue to implement the good things they have learned, meet and learn from each other and refine their craft."

Over the past few weeks, SDEA leaders have had a spirited discussion of whether our involvement in the search for new superintendent would be a
valuable use of our time. Some have advocated for little or no involvement because they have no expectation that our thoughts will materially affect the outcome of the search.

Others argue that we must participate and do whatever we can to impact the Board's decision because we will be living with the consequences of that decision for years to come.

A third point of view is that there is simply too much attention paid to these types of decisions and we would be better off organizationally to continue to focus on our advocacy and training our teachers to be empowered educational partners at their own schools. This approach allows us to deal with things over which we have control.

SDEA knows that much hard work lies ahead if we are going to continue to offer quality educational programs on behalf of all of San Diego's children. We are saddened that Carl Cohn does not have the energy and enthusiasm to continue that work. But SDEA is confident that his successor will understand that teachers and certificated support staff members are part of
the solution, not part of the problem.