The departure of Adams County School District 50 Superintendent, Roberta Selleck, means it’s time our community can move forward, move up and move on.
Selleck’s leaving is long overdue. We’ve been calling for her to her move along for more than a year. And our issue with Selleck wasn’t always about what she did. It was about the way she did it.
From the beginning, Selleck looked at the district as her private domain. She alienated many leaders in the community, and never took her critics seriously. She hand picked committees to recommend what she wanted, and had the majority of the school board believing she could do little wrong. Those who disagreed with her actions soon found themselves either belittled or alienated from the process.
Perhaps chief in our criticism of her procedures was the uber-adoption of Policy Governance. We were already critical of the procedure in which board members were supposed to focus only on the big picture and leave the details to staff. But Selleck took it to the extreme, even requiring board members to file “Freedom of Information” requests with the district to find out information that should have been provided freely upon request. It always appeared that things were being hidden, and we still believe that Selleck did her best to keep important facts from the parents, students and citizens she was supposed to be serving.
Now that she’s gone, our hope is that the board will unify in this important time, and get back to taking care of the district’s primary mission: providing a quality and meaningful education to the students of District 50.
Time will tell if the standards-based educational system will prove to be beneficial. We sincerely hope it succeeds, and that the students leave the district with all the skills they need to be successful in their next stages of life.
It’s too bad that Selleck’s reign ended under a cloud of suspicion and ambiguity. We hope those clouds will clear soon, and District 50 will find a way to grow, prosper and enrich the lives of those who interact with this vital component of the community.