By David M. Greenwald
Davis, CA – Former Superintendent David Murphy had to go. He couldn’t answer basic questions to the school board about what happened to an amount of money that the board was led to believe, indeed assured, would be going to renovations at King High. This was in 2006.
In 2007, the district was excited to announce the hiring of James Hammond after a long national search. What they didn’t know was that Hammond’s hiring would become the first of a series of relatively short tenures of superintendent — James Hammond, Winfred Roberson, and now John Bowes. Each was hired with some fanfare. Each took a position at a new school district and left.
I was not always a fan of John Bowes. My enduring memory of him will likely be sitting at meetings where he literally read his notes to me. He was not a great public speaker, preferring just to read his reports at times. His administration was difficult for reporters to deal with and lacked openness.
It was a time of great turmoil. He started during the conflict over the future of the AIM program (and largely ended the problem). He presided over the shutdown of the district — and at times 
sloppy and contentious handling of distance learning — and ultimate re-opening with community members up in arms.
We saw the teacher compensation issue — which well preceded him — explode and the community once again step up to support a new parcel tax. The passage of the parcel tax provided a critical boost to the district.
On the plus side, when he took over as superintendent he presided over an almost entirely white male upper administration. Slowly, and without fanfare, the administration looks very different than it did in 2016 — Laura Juanitas, Amari Watkins, Derek Brothers, Rody Boonchouy, Ricardo Perez — women and people of color.
Now we face a new hiring situation. Matt Best becomes the interim superintendent. The district has a choice. Best is a capable person, having risen from a teacher to a principal to the Associate Superintendent at DJUSD. Unlike the last three superintendents, he is a guy with roots in the community, who will probably not be looking to jump to a Southern California district to return home.
Best would bring the potential at least for stability to the district. Five years is not enough time to implement a long-term vision at the school districts. And DJUSD is greatly in need of long-term vision and leadership. How do you provide long-term vision when, every four or five years, a superintendent is leaving, you spend likely a year with an interim superintendent and then have a new one that takes a year or two to get up to speed.
Think about it, by the time John Bowes was up to speed and familiar with the district, he would have about one year before the world turned upside down in 2020 with the pandemic.
Matt Best brings some strengths to this, if he is indeed interested in becoming the next permanent superintendent — he has been here, he knows the staff and the system, and provides stability.
Some will argue that if we need an agent for change, hiring from within is the wrong way to go. We need new thinking, and that’s going to be difficult if you have a continuation hire.
On the other hand, we know there are other considerations as well.
We saw last summer what happened when the school board simply appointed someone to fill the board vacancy, based on experience and perhaps continuity. The parents immediately arose to erase the appointment — they wanted more diversity on the board.
That will be an important consideration — although two of the previous three superintendents have been people of color.
On the other hand, it is worth mentioning that none of the previous superintendents or interim superintendents have been women.
Aside from demographic considerations, DJUSD as I have argued is a district at tremendous crossroads.
The district faces declining enrollment and a multi-year budget deficit. Long-term declining enrollment is a serious problem and the district has never worked with the governance of the City of Davis to look at ways to bolster housing for families and make housing for teachers and employees more affordable — another consideration for teacher compensation issues.
The district has been disadvantaged in its funding scheme from the state, and as a result has become more and more reliant on parcel taxes. These parcel taxes have provided a patch for immediate funding losses, but the district needs a long-term vision on how to adequately fund its schools. It can’t do that with a series of short to intermediate term superintendents.
Finally, the district must look at the educational services it provides and make serious decisions about how it can remain a top-tiered district.
One thing is clear — the district needs to figure out a way to create a long-term vision to maintain its excellence in education, find more sustainable funding schemes, and figure out a way to create the kind of stability in staffing and leadership that it needs to thrive.
A lot is riding on the next hiring — the district and community have important work to do and vital questions to answer.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
How dare they fill an open position based on experience.
You say that as if it were all the parents, “some” parents and community activists would have been a more honest assessment.
OOPS!
Arise to erase! Arise to erase!
Gooooooo . . . Team!
YCDIE! YCDIE! 1-2-3!
YCDIE! YCDIE! You and me!
Erase the white woman! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
1, 2 . . . three?
Is it worth mentioning that you previously counted a person of color as white? (Hint: the point is the counting, not the miscounting)
By the way, what ‘color’ is this person? You make the numbers-by-skin-tone so important, yet I don’t know if this is a white guy or an anti-white guy. I guess I’m supposed to find a picture on line and figure this out for myself, and hope I’m good at categorizing people by how they appear.
By the way, I support the tenants of YCDIE as stated: to encourage people of color to run for office in Yolo County. I believe that is how it should be done. I don’t really know how that is actually being done except what is visible: forming from the rage of a qualified ‘white’ woman being chosen by the school board – and a Facebook page linked to every progressive cause and group, and promoting art happenings.
More turnover in superintendents is not just a phenomenon in Davis–it’s becoming the standard. It’s the risk of boards continually looking outward for a new vision for their district. Instead, they need to figure out how to cultivate leadership growth from inside.
DJUSD seems to have done a pretty good job of cultivating its own leadership. Three of the key associated superintendents have risen from the ranks. Matt Best, Rody Boonchoy and Troy Allen have all be principals at the most innovative school in the district, Da Vinci. Boonchoy actually left for several years to go to work for the charter school company in Napa that runs Da Vinci, and then returned, so he must see something here. Those three have been pushing curriculum revisions, including a focus on career tech education (CTE) that is probably the best path toward changing education for the “new” world. DJUSD could do much worse by looking outside–they already have an unusual cadre of visionaries that they are already familiar with and have demonstrated their staying power.
Absolutely agree…
I leave to others the opinion regarding qualifications of the ‘seasoned’ folk from within the current organization, but if there is a qualified candidate, or more, the Board should seriously consider appointing from within… flatter learning curve, for sure…
I’m not as familiar with K-12, but at the Community College level, we’ve been told that 3 years is the current statewide average tenure for Chancellors & Presidents, which is the comparable level of executive leadership. So while I definitely think it would be better to get someone who will stay longer, 5 years doesn’t seem like a revolving door to me. But my sense of normal is also skewed by being somewhere with a higher-than-average level of turnover for the past decade.
Just curious, if you know, Brian… do Community Colleges do nationwide searches for Chancellors/Presidents?
I can’t speak to all of them, but the one I work for (Contra Costa Community College District) does – we just hired a new President for one of our colleges whose prior experience is all from another part of the country. That said, California Ed Code is so different than a lot of the rest of the country that it would make sense to me if some colleges/districts decided not to.
Bowes oversaw the passing of the facilities bond to upgrade the schools and a parcel tax to help pay teachers a salary that is competitive with districts that are better funded by the state.
His fluency in Spanish was helpful in his constant reaching out to an often overlooked part of the community. All of his communications with the public were available in both English and Spanish.
The appointment of a trustee and the controversy surrounding it, while on his watch, was not his responsibility.
During the pandemic DJUSD made chromebooks available to every student and continued to feed students who got nutritional support through the schools.
In my opinion Bowes did a good job as Superintendent.
True story… but he did have the responsibility to advise, if he saw “issues”… the most disloyal thing you can do, is not take take your boss(es) aside, and warn them if they were about to “do a stupid”… perhaps he did, perhaps he didn’t… we’ll never know, but frankly (although I’m not), that is fully appropriate that we don’t know…
No opinion here, except he was definitely not a significant ‘screw-up’… that beats a number of former Superintendents by a significant margin…
I, for one, wish him well in his future endeavors…