School chiefs baffled by bill seeking retention vote

School superintendents are scratching their heads over a bill that would put them up for retention elections every two years.

HB144 would require Utah's 40 school district superintendents to be subject to a retention election in the first general election held two years after the superintendent's appointment by the school board.

They would have to face voters in general elections every two years thereafter.

"I suppose you might have to run, set up signs, 'reappoint the superintendent' — I don't know," said Barry Newbold, superintendent of the Jordan School District, the state's largest. "That all takes away from the primary purpose for which the superintendent was hired."

"I don't understand the intent — if a superintendent was elected and re-elected by the public then that makes sense," said Bryan Bowles, Davis superintendent.

Rep. Kenneth Sumsion, R-American Fork, the bill's sponsor, said it would give parents who feel they've been disenfranchised from their school district a little more control. He said oftentimes when families are unhappy with what is going on in a traditional school district they tend to "walk across the street and go to charter schools."

He said if a superintendent knows that his job depends on his response to the public's concerns, outside of the elected school board, then they will be more receptive to parents' voices.

Most of the bill lays out campaign finance and reporting requirements — relatively foreign to educators.

But several find the concept of retention elections troubling.

The bill could make the tough job of recruiting superintendents even tougher, Salt Lake District Superintendent McKell Withers said. And unpopular school board decisions might be taken out on the superintendent at election time — even though the bill would not give superintendents voting powers on school boards.

"It would seem to me to make it less likely that decisions in the best interest of kids and families would be made if the instructional leader of a district has to worry about ... elections instead of the primary responsibility, which is serving kids and families." Withers said.

Alpine Superintendent Vernon Henshaw was also surprised by the bill. He said he meets with local legislators — Sumsion is from Lehi — monthly, but this bill didn't come up in their last meeting.

Henshaw said the bill raises many questions.

"Right now ... you have your contract renewed every two years by your board of education, and obviously, there's scrutiny in it," Henshaw said. "I see it as a kind of real change in the system ... shifting, if you will, authority away from the board of education."

Steve Peterson, executive director of the Utah School Superintendents Association, said the group has not taken a position on the measure but said some states have their state superintendents elected, but he had never heard of local superintendents being subject to a retention vote.

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