Applicants may need a durable ego

Help Wanted: Seattle Public Schools has an exciting opportunity for an exceptional executive with the proper temperament to oversee K-12 public education in one of the country's most livable cities. Must be willing to tolerate an unpredictable board and hostile parents, and be inured to personal attacks. Do you know what WASL stands for? Can you balance a budget? Salary commensurate with qualifications and experience — but money is, in fact, an object.

Who would want this job?

Plenty of people, two education experts say. The district is expected to launch a national search in the next couple of months, and its ability to recruit a winner likely will depend on whether the board can agree on values, vision and the traits it wants in the successor to Raj Manhas.

Stephen Fink, executive director of the University of Washington College of Education's Center for Educational Leadership, said a district's political and financial situation influences its ability to recruit superintendent candidates. At the same time, though, the challenge of nursing an ailing budget back to health — and mending the fractures within the district — will play to the ego of anyone interested in the job.

"Even with everything that has gone on, I wouldn't be dissuaded to take the helm of Seattle Public Schools, but I sure wouldn't do it on a split board vote," Fink said, speaking hypothetically.

Don McAdams, president of the Center for Reform of School Systems, a nonprofit in Houston that trains school-board members, said there is no shortage of people who want to be superintendents of urban school districts, "but the pool of people able to make a big difference is small."

"I always tell board members: Don't fool yourself into thinking it's a buyer's market and that you can replace a superintendent with a star," McAdams said. "It doesn't work that way."

Seattle's reputation nationally as a progressive school district changed after voters swept out four members of the board in 2003, McAdams said. The perception of a divided board could be a hindrance in recruiting strong candidates.

"If a board has an overarching strategy and knows what track it is on, then the members can hire a superintendent who will go down that path with them," McAdams said. "But frequently, boards don't really know what they want. They are divided and fighting."

Fink said that while most urban superintendent jobs prove brief in tenure, there are exceptions. The superintendent in Boston recently retired after 11 years, and the Los Angeles school superintendent lasted longer than six. The superintendent of Atlanta schools has been on the job since July 1999.

Manhas earns $177,000 a year. But salaries of urban school superintendents are increasing rapidly, McAdams said.

Said Fink: "If the board is serious about getting someone of high quality, in this competitive market, it can expect to pay well into the $200,000 range, plus a nice benefit package."

Stuart Eskenazi: 206-464-2293 or seskenazi@seattletimes.com