Editorial: Magee for county superintendent

Both Waddell and Magee have a firm grasp on the position and its possibilities, while also exhibiting years of experience working on heady issues tied to the education of our county’s children. While the county superintendent has no direct oversight of the individual school districts, it acts in a supporting role to bridge gaps and ensure that local school leaders have the necessary resources. It also works in an advisory capacity on the implementation of new programs and systems and acts as a clearing house for information as it filters from the state to the local level and vice versa. Additionally, it operates the county’s court schools and has a strong hand in special education, foster child support and child, youth and family services. While it largely operates in the background, it provides an essential backbone for the county’s school children and their families.

Both candidates have their specialties — Waddell in programming to eliminate the achievement gap through Zap the Gap, Magee in creating safe and supportive schools through the Big Five emergency response protocol. Both have made their mark in the notable and important work of those programs though safe and supportive schools — both free from bullying and other threats — has had more recent attention.

As deputy superintendent, Waddell moves in political circles and has an interest in connecting to leaders outside of the county to work on bigger picture items. He has proven himself adept at doing so and has the ability to coherently move messages to and fro with ease. Magee is more of a nuts-and-bolts leader immersed in the detailed work of the office through her experience leading specific divisions. She is cognizant of the role an office of education can play in support and provides specific examples of how a policy or practice has direct impacts whether it be how the Local Control and Accountability Plan didn’t account for special education goals and how technology in the classroom can affect relationships between teachers and students and how to overcome obstacles derived from that.

While some can get caught up in jargon and the intricacies of policy, Magee can easily point to real-life examples of how education leadership can provide connective tissue to solving emerging issues such as the diminishing civic discourse in society and how that might affect the classroom while also knowing how the office can play a supporting role in diving into new data for local school districts while also keeping the doors to communication open at the ground level.

Again, we emphasize that both Waddell and Magee are exemplary public officials who would hit the ground running in the county superintendent role. Either are solid choices and we hope that, regardless of the result of this election, both will remain in local education service. However, there can only be one vote, and we recommend Magee.