The Journal Star reports that District 150 is “considering spending between $7,000 and $18,000 to hire a search firm to help it find a new principal for Richwoods High School.”

First of all, I don’t see how this can be interpreted as anything less than a no-confidence vote against D150 teachers. No one internally is qualified? No one has the necessary leadership skills? What is the leadership of D150 trying to say here? Maybe Associate Superintendent Hannah can shed some light on this:

“We want a pool, I think, that we can really be proud of … I think that’s where the drive is coming from,” Associate Superintendent Herschel Hannah said tonight at a School Board committee meeting.

Ah. Translation: We’re not proud of our internal pool of candidates. (Although, just reading his remarks, he doesn’t sound very sure of himself. He thinks that’s why they’re considering spending thousands of dollars. He doesn’t know?)

Secondly, even if a school needed extra-special expert leadership skills — someone from outside the system that would come in and really turn a school around — is Richwoods the D150 school that needs it? Is Richwoods really more in need of a (for lack of a better term) “top-tier principal” than Manual, Woodruff, or Central?

I have an idea: Why don’t we put Herschel Hannah or Cindy Fischer in as principal at Richwoods and then eliminate one of those completely unnecessary, money-wasting “associate superintendent” positions? We’d save the 7-18 thousand dollars on a search firm and a full-time salary/benefits position — a win-win for a school district that’s supposedly trying to save money.