Berman support initially divided

The Eugene School Board might have voted 7-0 on March 16 to hire Sheldon Berman to succeed George Russell as superintendent starting July 1, but e-mails shared among board members in the weeks before Berman’s selection show he was not everyone’s clear-cut choice from the get-go.

The e-mails, obtained by The Register-Guard in a records request, also show that others were divided over who was the best candidate for the job.

The Eugene Education Association, which represents nearly 1,000 teachers in the district, advocated for finalist Darlene Schottle, the superintendent of public schools in Kalispell, Mont.

And school board member and former Eugene Mayor Jim Torrey expressed serious concerns about hiring the 62-year-old Berman, who is in Eugene this weekend for the school board’s annual retreat and who is completing the final months of a controversial four years leading Kentucky’s largest school district in Louisville.

“For what it is worth, there seems to be more and more questions about Berman developing in the community,” school board Chairman Craig Smith wrote to board member Beth Gerot on Feb. 24, eight days after the board announced Berman as one of its three finalists, along with Schottle and Michael Munoz, chief academic officer of the Des Moines, Iowa, school district. “Jim Torrey has already forecast a possible vote against (Berman) and publicly saying so.

“I would hope that we do not end up with the situation where we decide Berman is too controversial, lose (candidate Munoz) and by default have one candidate left,” Smith said in his e-mail to Gerot. “I think we need to do what is necessary to pick among the 3, at least initially. We may lose one or more after that to other districts, but could feel good that we did our best to select from a ‘rich pool of candidates.’ ”

Despite the troubles that tainted Berman’s time in Louisville, Smith said this week that board members ultimately decided he was the strongest candidate, given his very successful 14 years leading the 2,800-student Hudson, Mass., school district from 1993 to 2007 — a tenure that included being named Massachusetts Superintendent of the Year in 2003 — and his reputation nationally as an innovative educator.

Berman was tabbed to lead the 16,500-student Eugene School District — a fraction of the size of Louisville’s 99,000-student district — as it deals with such tricky issues as closing a $21.7 million budget shortfall, negotiating more concessions with employee groups and tackling possible grade-level reconfigurations at several schools.

Critical letters

Board members received several e-mails from Eugene and Louisville residents that were critical of Berman, saying he would “change the district for the worse” and that “he certainly doesn’t seem like someone who would be a good fit for our district.”

But Smith said the board fully vetted the candidates and came away satisfied that many of their questions about Berman were answered — particularly during a March 4 visit to Louisville by Smith, Gerot, board member Mary Walston and the district’s human resources director, Celia Feres-Johnson.

The board simply determined that many things people were saying about Berman “weren’t true,” Smith said. “We dispelled a lot of innuendo, or at least got a different view. Ultimately, the decision was based on what is best for the district in the long run.”

The criticisms of Berman in Louisville mostly centered around a controversial student assignment plan he oversaw upon arriving in 2007. The plan altered the district’s old plan of assigning students to schools based on race — which the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled unconstitutional two days before Berman’s first day on the job — and changed it to one that assigned students to schools based on family income and education levels. Other criticisms concerned busing related to the student assignment plan and poor-performing high schools.

Asked about reservations he had about Berman, Torrey said this week that he had “some initial concerns about his socially progressive background I kept hearing about. But I came to the conclusion that I could accept him.”

Torrey would not comment on whether Berman was his first choice to replace Russell.

“I was concerned that we may be embarking on an Ivy League/cutting edge-focused education,” Torrey said, referring to Berman’s doctoral degree from Harvard University, “when, in fact, I think we ought to be focused on tried-and-true approaches to education.”

The Eugene district needs to find “practical, common-sense approaches” to finding help for students who are struggling or trying to learn in too-large classrooms, Torrey said. “We’ve got kids out there who need help,” he said.

Union concerns

At a bargaining session earlier this week, Eugene teacher union leaders expressed disbelief that the district was asking teachers to accept a third straight year of concessions and a first-ever pay cut, while offering Berman the richest superintendent’s contract in district history — $180,000 in his first year.

But some teachers had concerns about Berman even before learning about his proposed salary.

EEA President Dayna Mitchell wrote an e-mail to the school board on March 15 saying that Berman “has a wealth of experience … he has vision and believes (unionized) labor has its place within the district. He is excited about innovation but seems to approach issues more from theory and then decide how to make it happen. Though Sheldon is a good candidate, we wonder how long he will stay if hired.”

Mitchell said in her e-mail that candidate Schottle “appears to be the best fit. She has a lot of experience in both a larger school district and a smaller school district. She is also a nationally recognized educational figure and has family in the area, which may mean she’ll stay for a length of time. We feel Darlene went beyond the rhetoric in our conversations and really listened to what we were saying. She has a willingness to be involved in the negotiation process when needed. She seems very ‘hands on’ and grounded to what is really important — instruction.”

Many Eugene School District students, meanwhile, seemed to think Berman was the right choice, according to an e-mail sent to the school board from Tibor Bessko, a teacher on special assignment who led the Superintendent’s Student Advisory Committee. Bessko wrote the e-mail on March 10, two days after all three finalists met the community during a public forum.

“Dr. Berman was the only one who asked the students their names, their grades, and which schools they attended,” Bessko wrote. “He knew enough about each of their schools to ask them specific questions, which neither of the other two candidates did. He even knew the names of each of North’s small schools. Making these personal connections helped the students feel thought about and respected by him.”