posted by Mike Madison at 8:06 PM /
School Director Jo Posti reports that last Monday evening, Superintendent Timothy Steinhauer appointed the members of the Community Advisory Committee authorized by the School Board. The members are:
- Kevin Doody
- John Schrott
- Ronald Liebow
- Andrew Rhodes
- Ellsworth Vines
- Daniel Rothschild
- David Disque
- Robert Kinderman
- Robert Hicks
- Gary Gardner
- Dirk Taylor
Labels: dirk taylor, high school renovation
5 Comments:
Congratulations Ms. Posti. In your first post-election blog post, you proved my pre-election theory.
Prior to the election, I pointed out that your campaign's tagline of "Leadership through Dialogue, Teamwork and Compromise" was perfect. Specifically, Dialogue is fine so long as it consists of you want to hear; Teamwork is great if we're working towards a goal that you support; and Compromise works as long as you get what you want.
I'm assuming that the Board members each selected their preferred committee members based upon their credentials and not their gender. I don't think it advances the process much to recklessly suggest otherwise.
For those who do not follow the link provided to Jo Posti’s blog here is what she actually said:
“While the community members represented are all design and building professionals with solid expertise, I would have preferred a group more representative of our community and at least one or two members who are familiar with the project's history.”
Josephine Posti
Director Mt. Lebanon School District
November 10, 2009
I know one of the appointees personally and one by reputation - and I am sure that both will provide excellent service in this role. Yet isn’t there one place in a committee of eleven for a woman? Half the residents of Mt. Lebanon are female. Half the students in the schools are female. Women get no pass on paying school taxes - shouldn’t they have a role in the largest project ever undertaken by this community? Once again Dr. Steinhauer disappoints. I found a more enlightened attitude 80 years ago:
“...for a number of years women have been taking a keen interest in public schools, intelligently serving on boards of education - as is the case on our own board - and in many other ways displaying an interest that prior to the Suffrage Act was lacking...”
Elmer E. E. Stewart
President Mt. Lebanon School Board
November 27, 1929
Geoff Hurd
Actually Mr. Hurd, you left out the most critical piece of Ms. Posti's remarks. Specifically, she said she was disappointed to see that there are no women and no members of the Master Design Team or Design Advisory Committee represented on the committee.
First, I see no reason to duplicate rosters for the CAC, the MDT and DAC since according to the Board's own resolution the work of the latter groups will continue along in parallel with the work of the CAC.
Second, I think it needs to be said that that neither the Board nor Dr. Steinhauer had carte blanche in selecting the roster for the CAC. Instead, both were limited to the 27 residents who applied within the deadline. From that group, the Board each selected 15 and then Dr. Steinhauer reduced it to the final 11. I don't know this for a fact, but I'm inclined to believe that he picked the 11 who received the most votes from the Board.
Lastly, without even knowing the gender and credentials of the 27 candidates Mr. Hurd, how can you even remotely make this out to be an issue of gender? Do you know how many women applied? I don't. Do you the credentials of the women who applied? I don't either.
I don't care if the school population is 80/20 in favor of women, we owe it to ourselves to pick the best design/construction professionals available to us, regardless of whether they are male or female. No one has suggested that this what not done. Ms. Posti herself admits that those selected all have solid experience and credentials - shouldn't the discussion end there? She doesn't suggest that an equally qualified woman was excluded, just that women were excluded generally. That's an argument that lacks merit without the other side of the equation.
And frankly, to the extent folks want to make this out to be a gender issue (which it is not), I would offer that for the foreseeable future this project will be overseen, directed, managed and controlled by a School Board that is predominately female. I would therefore offer that the role of women in this project will be quite significant.
Remember that the CAC's members were appointed by vote, each school-board member voting for 15 of the 27 candidates, CAC appointments going to the top 11 vote-getters. [1] Under this selection strategy, you could easily have most school-board members voting for some women and yet have no women make the top 11. This outcome would be especially likely if the distribution of women candidates was larger or more uniform than that of the males, causing votes to spread out rather than pool up behind a few women candidates, who might then collect enough to rank in the top 11.
That the CAC is all male, then, isn't strong evidence of poor selection by school-board members. It might be evidence of a poor selection strategy, however, if we value diversity in our committees.
Cheers,
Tom
[1] The committee's maximum number of members will be 11. Board President Alan Silhol said 27 letters of interest were submitted by residents before the Oct. 23 deadline. Board members have until Thursday to vote for 15 candidates. (Source: Post-Gazette.)
Let's not lose focus on what this committee is all about. The CAC will have an opportunity to prove its worth to the community. That really is the goal here; to increase community support and buy-in for the high school project.
I have high hopes for what comes from these meetings.
Best of luck. You all have my utmost respect and support.
James Fraasch
Post a Comment
<< Home