Interim Seattle Schools Superintendent Susan Enfield explains why she’s leaving
Even when we interviewed her last fall on KING 5 News Up Front, Enfield stopped short of saying she would like to be considered for the job. Today, she made it official, announcing that she would not seek or accept the job permanently. Her contract with Seattle runs through June, 2012.
Enfield declined to give more detail than that, saying only that she’s leaving for “personal and professional reasons.”
Might she leave the door open, if the board were to make her a good offer? “This work is too important and I have too much respect for this community to play games like that, this was a genuine and as I said, much deliberated decision on my part that I made for reasons that are right for me and the time is right for me to move on,” Enfield says.
Could she see herself as a superintendent at another school district? “Oh absolutely, I will be a superintendent somewhere else,” Enfield told us.
There’s no shortage of urban school districts searching for Superintendents. Enfield could get a fresh start in another city (She has relatively few roots in Seattle; her husband continued to live in Vancouver over the past ten months).
In Seattle, Enfield got the interim job after the board fired Maria Goodloe-Johnson over a financial scandal. Enfield says the fact that Seattle voters ousted two school board members in the last election was not a factor in her decision. She also said she enjoyed the job, and was not disillusioned by anything in particular in Seattle.
School board member Michael DeBell says the board is prepared to move quickly next week, hiring a national search firm for a new superintendent. A search could cost up to $100,000 and the district would hope to have a new leader announced by July.
Related story: Enfield on Up Front
