Alaska's largest school districts have a history of bringing hot-shots into the job of school district superintendent that end up blowing the gig.My favorite was a guy named Gordon Tope, who was running the Mat-Su school district when we moved here in 1983. The next year, as the hot was disappearing from his shot, the troopers caught him lying about how his tires had been slashed. He claimed he found them that way, when being assaulted by critics, including the media. The troopers did a great investigation, at the end of which Tope copped a plea and left, the job, the state and - apparently - history.
Tope's opposite - he was the school superintendent where everything went wrong - would be the school superintendent where everything went right. That's never going to happen.
I think they had at least a six-pack of school superintendents in the Valley between Gordon Tope and Pat Chesbro. At a time when funding for education from every level of government was either disappearing or shriveling, Chesbro managed to hold the district together. I disagreed with some of the things she did, but she had to perform a lot of MASH unit triage on injured school programs in every area of the curriculum.
Pat Chesbro served the Valley kids well. This week, she's in charge of our incredibly interesting Democratic Party of Alaska Convention at the State Fair grounds.
The Anchorage School District's Carol Comeau has been the most persistently productive school superintendent I've yet witnessed in Alaska. I don't live in Anchorage, so I've never gotten involved there as a parent, but many friends with kids in that district feel that Carol is one of the best friends their kids have.
Superintendent Comeau's work and career were awarded and celebrated at the Howard Rock Ballroom at the Anchorage Sheraton Sunday by Congregation Beth Shalom. Steve Aufrecht was there, and did a thorough job of covering her Shining Lights award.
He also edited a tight, yet touching video of the tributes to Carol.
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