I was reading the Englewood Independent yesterday and a sidebar article caught my eye. Northmont has hired a new superintendent, Douglas Lantz, formerly the superintendent from Franklin City Schools. Great! New blood, fresh leadership, a focus on building the human infrastructure of tomorrow…
But, then I get to Linda Blum’s quote. For the people who have since lined their recyle bins with the paper, here it is:
“[Lantz's] experience as an athlete and a coach have taught him much about teamwork and the important components of an organized structure.”
What?? Where is the educational excellence? Where is the leadership skills that will infuse a new level of academic excellence into our kids that will better prepare them for leadership in the changing world? Where is the challenge of producing thought leadership in our students to better equip them to adapt to the dynamic world around them? Where? Where?
Perhaps it is best if we look at Mr. Lantz’s performance as measured by the State of Ohio Report Card System (yeah, I know.. but that is an entirely different blog.)
Northmont’s Report Card | Franklin City Schools Report Card
Well, I can do the analysis, but you all can probably do it better. Bottom line, we are bringing in a superintendent whose highest score was 92.8, Effective to manage a school district that has already achieved a score of 102, Excellent. Hmmm..
I think what Mr. Lantz has really learned from his being an athlete and a coach is that if you hang around long enough on the bench and show up every day for practice, the coach will eventually play you, whether you are good enough for the job or not.
I’m a dog who can read, write and think. Perhaps I should have applied for the job. As an athletic dog, I can probably out-run Lantz as well 
on Jul 16th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
If “fitness” is the issue, the public records should be checked regarding the arbitrations lost (3 out 3)as well as the grievances (over two dozen)last year. Has anyone in Franklin City Schools done the “math” as to how much the legal fees cost the taxpayers? Must have been too concerned about the “aftermath”. Can Northmont afford this? Looks like no one else could. Why five job changes within ten years?
on Jul 17th, 2008 at 7:33 am
@Al Interesting….. Northmont can’t afford this. The Northmont employer community can’t afford the cost of an ever-increasing “dumbing down” of the education the kids are receiving. Rufus has stopped hiring anyone with a Northmont history simply because they can’t do math, they don’t know basics like how to address an envelope or write a short thank you letter.
You don’t have to look very far to see where the problem lies. Every “article” Dr. Mabry has ever written for the Northmont newsletter.. chock full of grammatical errors, run-on sentences, sentence fragments, verb/noun disagreement and just generally rambling. Now, we have Lantz, who has a worse track record (pun intended!) His first published piece as the Northmont superintendent will be interesting. Rufus will carry it here.
Blum and board just looked to get someone, anyone installed before the start of the school year. If they looked outside of the Miami Valley, they didn’t look very hard. We needed someone who could raise the standards of the district, not for the district to pad the resume of someone who is clearly not qualified for the job.
One more year for me… Rufus will be watching this closely.