Gwen Chan to retire
So it is official. Gwen Chan will not be the next superintendent: San Francisco schools acting superintendent to retire July 1:
But she has chosen to retire, and who can blame her? Other news about the superintendent search sounds promising. The search is progressing quickly with no glitches or damaging leaks.
Chan announced her retirement at a news conference at Francisco Middle school, with 100 friends, former students, colleagues and district staff in the audience.She has made her misgivings about the job clear in the past, so this is not a big surprise. In her short tenure she has already had some friction with the board on issues like JROTC and Prop H spending. Yet she has also demonstrated an ability to overcome factious differences and calm troubled waters. The climate at the BOE was noticeably calmer and more professional after Chan replaced Ackerman. Her calm collegial manner helped resolve the labor impasse that she had inherited too. Under different circumstances she clearly could have been an effective superintendent.
But she has chosen to retire, and who can blame her? Other news about the superintendent search sounds promising. The search is progressing quickly with no glitches or damaging leaks.
Labels: SFUSD Politics
1 Comments:
Gwen Chan is a marvelous administrator and it’s a damn shame she isn’t taking the Superintendent’s job. She did a fantastic job as principal of Lincoln High School and assistant principal of Washington.
I think Gwen saw the writing on the wall and understood just how hard it is to work with the current Board of Education. At the meeting in which the board passed a resolution phasing out the JROTC program, she spoke tearfully in defense of the JROTC. Later, after the ROTC vote, she told the Examiner that “I might not be right person for job” because the ROTC vote “made her question what relationship she’d have with the school board.” (http://www.examiner.com/a-423668~Chan__I_might_not_be_right_person_for_job.html)
Gwen Chan always put kids before politics. She was a natural teacher who loved kids. That would make it very, very hard for her to work with the idealogues on the current Board of Education.
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