Plainfield School District Hiring Process Needs To Be Clarified to Parents and Community

Questions on the Plainfield school district's hiring process have been raised "behind the scenes" for the longest time. The questions range from who gets hired, who decides, what qualifies the person to be hired for this or that position and more. For whatever reasons, staff questioning the hiring process feel the questioning will endangered their job so the questioning is limited to "rumors". And those few parents and residents following the district's hiring process are often labeled as "nuisance" or "misinformed".

Well, it is time to move our Plainfield school district away from the "rumor mill" and openly talk about the hiring process that takes place in our school district. This is especially important after the scandals of these past several years. We, the Plainfield community, deserve much better than rumors and anonymous comments.

Because sharp questions were asked on this blog's comment box answers from someone who seems to know what the hiring process looks like were left. The answer provides with the hiring tools the district uses and I thank this person for doing so as most likely a blank copy of each document mentioned can be obtained through OPRA. But the problems with the hiring process don't stop with the tools used, one main problem is with the lack of assurance that policy and regulations are being followed as they should.

There is also more to the school district hiring process that needs to be openly discussed, like what happens when the school board is given a recommendation to hire someone but that someone does not have the proper certifications or experience for the job? What kind of assurance our school board gets from the district that policy and regulations have been followed by the district when it comes to hiring?

The school board might, on some instances, have the prerogative to waive qualifications in lieu of a candidate's experience but waving state mandated required certifications or experience should come with a pretty good reason given the fact that we are a school district with students that have many needs. To this date, and since 2006, there have been appointments and hiring of staff that have lacked either the certification and/or the experience or in some cases, both.

What is more, the current school board came in after denouncing the improper hiring of couple of staff that were brought in by a former superintendent and for that we should thank them for we are a more informed community today. But it is only fair that this school board and the current administration provide the community a clarification on how they have corrected and improved the Plainfield school district's hiring process.

Plainfield children that attend the city's public schools should not serve as guinea pigs for inexperienced school leaders.