Fields explains superintendent selection process

IOWA CITY – How and when did the Iowa City school board makes its decision to hire Stephen Murley as the next superintendent?

There was some confusion Tuesday night, as you can see from the story here.

I spoke with board President Patti Fields Wednesday morning.

First, some background. The school board met Sunday night in closed session, with the goal of picking a new superintendent.

I talked with Fields after the meeting. My first question was whether they had made a decision. She said the board was “still working through our process.”

I asked her what that meant and whether they had made a selection. She said that the board hoped to have something figured out in the next three days and that they had not eliminated any of the three candidates.

She also said the board could meet in another closed session to discuss the matter further.

We didn't hear anything more until Fields announced Murley's hiring Tuesday night.

Wednesday morning, Fields said she was not trying to be misleading the other day. She said board members were unanimous in naming Murley their “preferred” candidate, but in case they couldn't reach an agreement with him, they did not rule anyone out.

“We can't even say we've ‘selected,'” Fields said, “because when you start saying you've selected, then it means you also threw (out) the other two.”

She said she had to choose her words carefully on Sunday. I wish I had asked her then if they had a “preferred” candidate.

By the way, the Press-Citizen ran into this issue of semantics too.

Patti, I may have to give you the “Meet the Press” treatment from now on.

(That is a joke. Fields and I had a very good talk this morning.)

On to her comments on the GazetteOnline story. I initially wrote that she said Sunday that the board “expected” to hold another closed session.

I quickly changed that to “may”  in subsequent updates and for the newspaper, but I apologize for the poor word choice in the first update.

And on her other point, I did not have a chance to talk with board members Tuesday night. Fields made the announcement during the board meeting, and the meeting continued, without a break, until well past our deadline. I did not allege that they broke the open meetings law. I just pointed out that if they met, they did not send out the required notice.

Believe me, I wanted to ask some questions.