A new superintendent, sure — but what about the board?

You can see this scenario coming, months before it actually occurs: Newspaper photos of the new superintendent talking, excitedly, to elementary students bearing "Welcome to Seattle" signs; TV news clips of the new supe scurrying off to visit another school; teachers and students at a beginning-of-the-year pep rally at Memorial Stadium.

Parents, teachers and civic leaders are abuzz about two candidates for Seattle Public Schools superintendent: Gregory Thornton, chief academic officer of Philadelphia schools, and Maria Goodloe-Johnson, superintendent of schools in Charleston, S.C.

Pick one or neither. What is most disconcerting about the Seattle School Board's plan to hire a new superintendent is the absurd timing. I cannot be the only one who recognizes this search as the Re-election Security Act for four School Board members who need to be replaced.

At least two of the four School Board members facing election this fall, Sally Soriano and Darlene Flynn, have not earned the right to be re-elected. At one time, Soriano was suing the district over the school-closure plan. In essence, she was suing herself. Flynn has been one of the most-divisive board members. We do not need these two to continue.

Two other board members, Brita Butler-Wall and Irene Stewart, are weak-willed. Both had the potential to be good leaders, but at various junctures they couldn't meet the challenge. Under this School Board, our schools have sputtered and stalled.

Granted, the school district needs to hire a superintendent because current leader Raj Manhas is leaving in August. Manhas, working with a very difficult board, decided to leave and that created the opening that must be filled.

Everybody knows it takes any new leader a year or two to get up to speed to do this complicated job. A very good idea to avoid that long learning curve sat in front of the board: hiring beloved former Seattle Mayor Norm Rice as interim superintendent. Rice knows how to manage, how to bring people together and how to operate smoothly in our city. But the School Board would have none of it, in part because it wasn't its idea. It came from Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels.

So we are left with unfortunate timing. A new superintendent likely arrives in summer as Manhas leaves. As always, the arc of a new superintendency begins with a rosy phase. The weeks and months when the city is welcoming the newcomer and the newcomer is learning the landscape is often a time of optimism. Hope springs eternal. Everyone is full of ideas of what might be, what can happen.

Well, isn't that a precious coincidence? Those upbeat months occur as these four face re-election, creating the best possible circumstances for them at a time when our city needs something else entirely: a new, broader-minded, more-forward-looking majority. The Seattle Times editorial page has recommended that five of seven board members move on — all but Cheryl Chow and Michael DeBell.

It makes no sense to hire a superintendent who works for a majority that should be gone by December.

The good news is the voters get it. A private poll done for a civic group last fall shows the job-approval rating of the current School Board in the high 20s — perilously close to George Bush numbers, only worse. Fortunately for our city, the public distinguishes between adults and the children, which explains why levies pass. The school district should be most grateful to taxpayers who vote the way they do.

My fear is the superintendent honeymoon will cover the truth.

How did this once-proud district allow itself to get swallowed up in debate over whether this or that school exists for the haves or the have-nots? Isn't a school district, by definition, an entity that caters to a broad range of students and interests? The language of school politics has become too divisive.

All the unease is driving more families away from our schools.

Seattle is one of the most-livable cities in the country, but with a small-minded School Board, we are becoming more like other cities that have lost their ability to deliver education to a wide range of students.

The superintendent search is a clever way to obscure the realities of this School Board. It is time for a new group of leaders and thinkers to take their place, and that will be true no matter who is officially running the schools.

Joni Balter's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. Her e-mail address is jbalter@seattletimes.com