EDITORIAL: Secrecy is bad policy

   The South Brunswick Board of Education has hired a new superintendent this week and that is good news.
   The bad news, however, is the manner in which the board chose to fill the position.
   For a while now, the board has been taking in applications and conducting interviews to replace Dr. Gary McCartney who is leaving the district after 10 years this June.
   Despite the promise to make the process transparent and open to the public, it appears all of the screening and decision-making for the new hire was conducted behind closed doors, far from the light of public scrutiny.
   While we certainly understand the privacy concerns of the 35 or so initial applicants, we can’t see why the finalist for the position could not be made public until after the board voted in public Monday night to hire him.
   As Board President Dr. Stephen Parker and other members have repeatedly pointed out, this appointment is the most important function the panel has.
   When the board did ask for public input, it was in the form of a survey of the criteria to select a candidate.
   While this was a good move on the part of the board, it would be the last time the public would be involved.
   The reasoning behind the secrecy of the interview process and the whittling down of candidates was to “protect their privacy,” according to Dr. Parker.
   We agree that this was prudent in the early going, but once the field of 36 applicants became a field of three finalists, the board should have brought the public back into the mix.
   This is the standard practice in states like Massachusetts and New Hampshire where the final group of candidates is interviewed in public and also part of public visits and forums in the district.
   This gives the community an opportunity to thoroughly question them on educational philosophy and how they view their role in the district and has not brought any negative repercussions to those seeking the positions.
   In this case, however, the board kept its cards close to the vest and did not release the final candidate’s name until after Monday’s vote.
   Requests for the name of the finalist and the resolution the board voted on made as early as Friday, when the 48-hour legal notice of Monday night’s special meeting was received by the Post, were quickly refused.
   This is bad public policy.
   We do give board members credit for the numerous hours spent screening and interviewing the candidates, but we also ask what was gained by not allowing the public in on the final rounds.
   If someone is that close to getting the position, they should be willing to be known to the community.
   Board members should have voiced as much publicly during this process to show that they truly believe in open governance.
   They, however, remained silent and gagged until Monday night.
   It would do little good to vote existing members off the board when state law allows such unacceptable behavior.
   It gives cover to those that feel they know better than the rest of us what is in our best interest.
   The answer is passing a state law making public disclosure and participation in the end of the process mandatory.
   With that law in place, local boards could be held accountable for keeping such information secret until after the vote.
   Transparency is always the best public policy.