More than a week has passed since the Dallas ISD school board’s strange plan to hire two search firms to find a replacement for Superintendent Michael...
First, this was doomed from the start, and for the good reason that trustee Joyce Foreman raised at the Feb. 17 meeting: It never went through the formal bid process.
Second, the DISD board tied a lot of things into the search firm process that should not have been tied in, including the desire to “capacity build” for firms without the experience to do the job. Among the firms that presented to the board on Feb. 17 was a small law firm with zero experience in finding a superintendent for a school district anywhere.
Finally, the whole thing came apart when Foreman didn’t stick to her guns and insist on a formal bid process. Instead, Foreman seemed content to move forward so long as Walsh Gallegos was hired in addition to JG Consulting. That made little sense to us, given her passionate and correct arguments earlier in the meeting that a bid process was necessary.
“I clearly did not want to go with what I perceived as a firm that was handpicked by the Lawyer for the District ..., Board President and the current Superintendent,” she wrote to us. “That would have only set up a controlled process with a predictable outcome. If we had only followed our general practice of procurement none of the wrangling would have taken place. I want us to have a process where we look at several candidates and choose the best for our students, parents and taxpayers.