Woodstock D-200 Sup't. search forums

In case you missed the announcement in The Woodstock Independent (TWI) or on the District 200 website, the Woodstock District 200 Superintendent Search will reach the public this week, when there will be three public forums. They are scheduled for

Tuesday, January 21, 3:45-5:00PM
Wednesday, January 22, 3:45-5:00PM
Thursday, January 23, 3:45-5:00PM

All will be held at Woodstock North High School, 3000 Raffel Road. The top three candidates are Michael Moan, Michael Pope and Jeff Schwiebert. As of press time for TWI, the order of appearance had not been released.

The format for each session will be:

• 3:45 - 4:15 p.m. –  Reception in the Commons
• 4:15 - 4:30 p.m. –  Candidate comments in the Auditorium
• 4:30 - 5:00 p.m. –  Question and Answer Session

My opinion? That's certainly convenient scheduling, if you are a teacher in D-200. But is that "the public"? Administrators and staff ought to still be hard at work, earning their generous pay. Moms may be at home, waiting for their kids to be dropped off by buses, or maybe they sat in the carpool line, trying to stay warm with the car engines turned off, and have just driven their kids home. Dads and a lot of Moms will probably be at work, so that they can afford the high property taxes for D-200.

So who will attend? And why did D-200 schedule three different forums? Do they really think that moms and dads will cut work and be able to attend all three? How else will they meet all the candidates? Or does it really matter, since the School Board will hire the candidate they like?

Will District 200 use technology to stream the forums on its website?

The following message has been sent to the School Board Trustees and Superintendent Wrzeski:

"Regarding the Superintendent candidates' search forums scheduled for this week, may I suggest that you stream them live on the internet and archive them on the D-200 website, so that parents, who are working to pay the extraordinary property taxes that support D-200, will have the opportunity to view the candidates' remarks and hear the Q&A?

"Also, may I suggest that you establish an email address, such as Trustees@wcusd200.org or SchoolBoard@wcusd200.org, rather than having email for you dumped on the webmaster?"