Mitch PerryYou wanna lay odds that MaryEllen Elia holds on to her gig next Tuesday?
A casual analysis regarding the fate of the 66-year-old Hillsborough County Superintendent shows that it could come down to the two newcomers to the board, Melissa Snively and Sally Harris. Neither of them are fully prepared to make such a momentous decision, they both admit, since they’ve been on their job for just a couple of months and aren’t up to speed on all of the roiling issues inside the district that have led to such consternation amongst the more critical board members (and many others within the district).
The pressure is mounting on the newbies to oppose the termination of Elia, however, led by the editorial boards of both the Tampa Bay Times & the Tampa Tribune this morning. Bob Buckhorn also isn’t supporting the idea (see below).
The Trib worries that canning Elia will be an embarrassment, since she’s currently been shortlisted for national recognition as one of the top superintendent’s in the nation. The Times acknowledges that she “has her shortcomings,” but concludes that this is more about “settling scores than the district’s academic performance or education policy.”
Essentially, the feeling amongst the elites is that this is just sour grapes on the part of board members April Griffin and Susan Valdes. But as Marlene Sokol reports in the Times, there are plenty of others, particularly bus drivers and parents with kids with special needs, who aren’t impressed at all with the gaudy honors that Elia has received from her peers around the state.
If you want to read the tea leaves, you can predict that Snively and Harris will choose the easier path and go along to retain Elia, despite the fact that they’re ill-prepared to take such a vote. Snively has already been quoted as saying she’s concerned about the cost of firing Elia (over $500,000 the district would owe her), while Harris has publicly praised her. Harris was aided during her general election run against Michelle Shimberg by a huge Elia critic, former school board candidate Michael Weston.
In other news…
Officials with Tampa and Hillsborough County are going to have to figure out by this fall whether or not they’re going to put a transit tax referendum on the 2016 ballot. The first step to getting there in 2015 began yesterday.
We caught up with Mayor Bob Buckhorn yesterday. He did speak out against the possibility of the Hillsborough County School Board firing Superintendent MaryEllen Elia next week; he was less engaged in talking about the possibility of hosting a consulate for Cuba in the Cigar City, however.
And in an event that for will benefit former legislator Helen Gordon Davis’ Centre for Women in Tampa, feminist icon Gloria Steinem will speak in Tampa next month.
