Superintendent gets good reviews

The Sisters School Board gave a thumbs-up performance review to its freshman school superintendent Monday night. And it learned that one of its own members, Tom Coffield, will be quitting soon.

The favorable assessment of Superintendent Ted Thonstad was expected. Although the former Condon superintendent has served less than a year, he has impressed his elected bosses with a combination of candor and diligence.

The review process was unusually detailed compared with some in past years. Each board member interviewed five or six selected citizens familiar with the schools, including some school staff members. The interviewers shared the results, and their own personal views, while Thonstad was out of the room. When he returned, Board Chairman Glen Lasken summarized the results for him.

The two newly elected board members who will take office in July, Rob Corrigan and Mike Gould, sat in on the session but were not invited to participate.

While the review took place in an executive (private) session not subject to reporting, Lasken summed it up for The Nugget afterward, saying that the board feels Thonstad has done an excellent job “in a very tough year.” He said board members agreed that a lesser person could have been sunk by the series of challenges that have confronted the new man, including a controversy over a financial program involving Sonrise Christian School, the immediate need to renew the local option levy, several union grievances and the illness of the district’s business manager.

Lasken said board members told Thonstad they appreciated his “impeccable morality” and his courage. They said he was a “good leader” but not a dictator and a “good ambassador” for the schools in the community. Deficiencies dealt largely with organizational issues, including a tendency to leave some things to the last minute, which Thonstad cheerfully acknowledged and agreed to work on.

In the other news of the evening, Coffield told his colleagues he is resigning his post despite having served only half of his four-year term. He was elected in May 2003.

He agreed to stay on through July to give the board time to appoint a successor.

In a post-meeting interview, Coffield, 56, explained that he is basically returning part-time to the kind of boat maintenance and repair work that he was in before he and his wife moved to Sisters 13 years go.

That will take him away from the area to various Pacific ports several months a year. In addition, he and his wife have planned an extended winter trip to Arizona.

“So we will be in the area until mid-August and then be gone most of the winter, either working or having fun,” he said. “I’ve really enjoyed being on the school board. I have found it both rewarding and challenging. But I can’t do it justice and be gone as much as I want to be gone this year. It would be unfair to the other school board members to do that.”