School board member Allen Dyer doesn’t want the school system to follow state law when selecting a new schools superintendent to replace retiring Sydney Cousin. At a school board retreat last week he proposed conducting two parallel superintendent searches, one in accordance with the law and one for “non traditional” candidates that he seems to prefer.
When it was pointed out to Allen that state law defines the requirements for school superintendents, he responded that “COMAR is flexible.”
COMAR is the acronym for Code of Maryland Regulations governing state agencies. In Allen’s view state law can be tweaked to fit his whim. It should be noted that he is one of very few people who believe this.
COMAR states that any superintendent candidate must be certified in “early childhood education, elementary education, or secondary education, have a masters degree, have three years teaching experience and two years of school administration experience, and have “completed a 2-year program with graduate courses in administration and supervision in an institution or institutions approved by an accrediting agency recognized by the State Superintendent of Schools. Graduate work under §B may be applied toward the requirements of this section, provided that a minimum of 60 semester hours of graduate work is presented.”
Any candidate that the school board sends up to the state schools superintendent for final approval must meet these criteria or they will likely be rejected.
Of course Allen already has spoken to a “non traditional” candidate. At the retreat he told fellow board members that retired Major General Robert P. Steele is interested in the job. He was formerly the commandant of the National War College
