The schools are closed but the big news of the days it that School Superintendent Weast's contract has been extended unanimously by the school board. Fortunately, we know he can lead us through today's crisis because as Superintendent Weast:
I've seen it through snipers. I've seen it through 9/11. I've seen it through every event that could happen in this communityCan you make this stuff up? I realize that we've been following our president's lead in defining leadership down but do we all receive gold stars for surviving 9/11? Oddly enough, I suspect handling 9/11 as head of the school system was duck soup compared to some of the day-to-day challenges for which Weast's admirers give him plaudits:
Admirers credit Weast with effectively balancing the interests of the county's haves and have-nots, attending to language and poverty needs in the eastern swath of the county while simultaneously managing highly organized parent groups in affluent Bethesda and Potomac, sometimes on the same day.
Weast credited his team, and himself, with overseeing an era of rising test scores in a school system that is growing more racially diverse. Few school systems accomplish that feat, he said, because of the enduring achievement gap between white and Asian students on the one hand and blacks and Hispanics on the other.
"Find me another one, because I'd like to see it," Weast said, after accepting the board's offer yesterday morning. "And I've studied the top 100 school systems."
