So now Highline has something in common with our big neighbor to the north-we're both looking for a new permanent school superintendent.

Highline Public Schools Superintendent John Welch announced March 17 that he is leaving to head the Puget Sound Educational Service District over in Renton. We lost the service district headquarters a couple of years ago when they moved away from the spot where the Burien Town Square is now. Burien replaced its fourth largest employer with a project that, so far, hasn't panned out economically.

The Puget Sound service district is one of nine agencies in the state that provide instructional and administrative support to public schools and direct services to students and families.

Heading that district sounds a lot less stomach-churning, insomnia-inducing than being chief of a low-income, highly diverse urban school district with major money woes and, at times, seemingly intractable academic achievement problems.

Welch lasted six years and is leaving on his own terms. That's a lot better than the revolving-door situation in the Emerald City. The last Seattle superintendent was fired while out of town caring for her sick mother.
Now the process to pick Welch's replacement begins. When Welch was hired in 2005, the Highline School Board hired an expensive headhunter whose national search ended up looking kind of strange.

After the big national search, the board was left with two finalists. One was the district's second-in-command seeking a promotion. Welch had been brought in and given the new position of deputy superintendent a couple of years before Superintendent Joe McGeehan announced his retirement.

The other finalist looked good on paper and presented herself well in the public interview. She had been a superintendent in two districts-- on leave from her current position. She was on leave because she couldn't get along with the school board, the teachers or most of the parents. Her two tenures had been marked by incredible divisiveness. In Highline schools, civility is prized above most everything.

The board made the obvious best choice and the transition from McGeehan to Welch was smooth.
McGeehan, who rubbed some people the wrong way, deserves a lot of credit. His last year McGeehan could have taken an easy victory lap around the district. Instead, he redrew school boundary lines, thus enduring numerous slanderous barbs from anguished parents during seemingly endless public hearings.

McGeehan also set in motion the conversion from comprehensive high schools to small learning communities. This was quite simply a switch from the way secondary education had been done in this country for more than a century. It was the way that had worked for most middle class students and certainly for the teachers who had enjoyed their own secondary school experience so much they decided to spend their adult careers back in high school.

Small schools seemed like a good idea at the time. Instead of having a student move from room to room with different teachers and different classmates, form a small academy with students and teachers who know and care about each other.

While the test scores have been disappointing, small schools have been credited with helping to lower the dropout rate and sending more kids to college who are the first in their family to do so.

Originally a strong advocate of small schools, Bill Gates has reportedly cooled on them. Gates, now partially in the school reform business, certainly should know from his previous job how to achieve great results: Hire the best employees. Pay them well. Treat them well (free Starbucks coffee and pop?) Set high standards. Constantly re-evaluate.

Welch took over from McGeehan and implemented the small schools. He also introduced other reforms, including two essentially public charter schools-Aviation and Big Picture high schools. It also was good to have a finance guy at the top during the severe budget crunches.

Two years into his tenure, fellow school superintendents from around the state named Welch as the year's most effective administrator.

So what we should we look for in a new superintendent?

How about flexibility, innovation and proven success?

Now if Superman or Wonder Woman applies, we'd be set.