District 203 hires new leader

[title1parent]

www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=269018&src=76

District 203 hires new leader
Washington educator to take the helm in July

By Melissa Jenco | Daily Herald 2/3/2009

Naperville Unit District 203 has hired Seattle-area educator Mark Mitrovich as its new superintendent.

Mitrovich, 63, signed a three-year contract with the district Monday that will give him a starting salary of $203,000 not including benefits. He will take the helm July 1.

The new leader has 30 years in education under his belt and is the chief education officer for EdGate, a company he co-founded that uses the Internet to improve student learning.

"The board of education found Dr. Mitrovich's unique blend of experience in education and business exactly the right combination of skills to take this district and our students to the next level of learning," board President Suzyn Price said. "He is a visionary with ambition, passion and the wherewithal to lead our district in exciting directions."

Mitrovich will replace Alan Leis, who is retiring after 40 years in education including the past six in District 203. Before founding EdGate, Mitrovich served as the superintendent of Peninsula School District in Gig Harbor, Wash., a 15-school district of kindergarten through high school students.

He holds a doctorate in education administration from the University of Santa Barbara and was named Washington state's Principal of the Year in 1991 and Superintendent of the Year in 1998.

Mitrovich has also served as an adviser to several education entities including the New York City Board of Education and the Ministries of Education in New Zealand and the state of Victoria in Australia.

Working with Microsoft, he helped start the Anywhere, Anytime Learning Program that puts laptop computers into students' hands and has also developed the Total Reader Web-based reading assessment program.

Mitrovich is also the founder Benevolent Bean Coffee, which puts much of its profits toward improving health and education in Ethiopia.

While he hasn't been working directly for a school district in recent years, Mitrovich has been closely tied to the education world, visiting schools both across the country and around the globe. Realizing his heart was still in a school district and long aware of District 203's reputation, he said he jumped at the opportunity to apply for the superintendent position.

"In looking at the opportunities, never did I dream something like this would come up and be available, let alone that I would be selected for this position," he said. "I can assure you there is a high level of energy that comes with me into this kind of a position. I am very eager to get started and work with you - the staff, the district, the community in general and this board."

Roughly 40 educators applied for the post. Earlier this month the board interviewed the top five candidates. Price and board member Mike Jaensch then visited Mitrovich's former district.

Jaensch said they interviewed more than 15 people including teachers, secretaries and community members, and the description of Mitrovich as visionary was a common theme. He was also described as student-centered, personable and a great communicator.

"He's everything I think the community was looking for and I don't want to minimize the fact that he has wonderful credentials as an educator and as an administrator," Jaensch said.

The board unanimously approved hiring Mitrovich and he was given a standing ovation by the large crowd that gathered to welcome him Monday.

Board member Dean Reschke, who was on the board when Leis was hired in 2003, said the comments he has heard about Mitrovich mirror those he heard about Leis.

"I think we hit two home runs in a row," he said.

[majorianthrax]

I wish the guy luck. Hopefully he won't have to go through the garbage Daeschner has had to deal with.

[eb204]

Perhaps the folks in D203 will be a little more open-minded when it comes to change.

It seems he brings a diverse background to this position. I wish him luck in this new adventure.

[asmodeus]

Is he currently receiving a pension from his prior gigs?

[wvhsparent]

Feb 3, 2009 10:50:03 GMT -5 asmodeus said:

Is he currently receiving a pension from his prior gigs?

What does that have to do with anything?

Say you were to retire from your job. You have a pension that you can start drawing on.

XYZ company would like to hire you now. Should they reduce your pay based on how much of a pension you get from your last job?
XYZ normally pays the position 5k/month, but seeing as you have a pension we are only offering you 2.5k/month.

[asmodeus]

What does that have to do with anything?

Because this is a common theme...a supt "retires" and then pops up again in another district. Often several times. It goes against the spirit of why the pensions are there in the first place.

[wvhsparent]

OK - I see your point. The easiest way to "fix" that issue would be to tie a pension to longevity.
example - you have to work here for 7 years before any pension kicks in. Of course monies would be allocated during those 7 years, but if one were to leave prior to that.....back to the SD it goes.
In essence if this were in place now the outgoing Leis would not get a 203 pension as he was only with the SD for 6 years.
Or it is only 100% after 7 years but say 50% after 4 etc.

[sportsmom]

Gail MacKenzie "retired" from District 204 drawing a very nice pension, I am sure. She then is/was (haven't checked if she's still there) Supt of Schools in Orlando, FL. I imagine she will retire from here with a really nice pension. I think when pensions first started - before any of us were born- they were to pay for the immediate retirement of workers. I agree with asmodeus that school district "pensions" nationwide are way out of whack. What ever happened to 20-25 years of service? Isn't that what it used to be?

[Arwen]

I don't really mind if they collect a pension it they've served 5+ years or something like that, but a pension for someone with 5 years of service should be very, very small compared to someone who served 25 years of service. Is this how it works?

[title1parent]

www.suburbanchicagonews.com/napervillesun/news/1416782,Questions-superintendent_na020609.article


Questions arise over Mitrovich's degree
But Mitrovich says he's glad he attended unaccredited university

February 6, 2009

By TIM WALDORF [e-mail]
It didn't take long for The Sun's online community to begin sizing up Mark Mitrovich, Naperville School District 203's next superintendent.

About 13 hours after the District 203 board approved his three-year, $203,000 contract during its Monday meeting, "J Deckston Benstoe," an online reader of The Naperville Sun, suggested someone conduct a Google search of the phrases "University of Santa Barbara" and "diploma mill," which is a search that returns plenty of reading. Mitrovich earned his doctor of philosophy in education degree from the school in 1993.
)
"Do we vet candidates prior to hiring them for a position like this? Do we ask them why they got a bogus degree?"

But "bogus degree" is a description with which Mitrovich deeply disagreed.

"This was not a place where you wrote a check, somebody slammed you with a piece of paper, and you went off and called yourself a doctor," Mitrovich said.

"Diploma mill" isn't an accurate description either, according to Hank Gmitro, an associate with Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, the search firm the district paid at least $19,000 to help it select a successor to current Superintendent Alan Leis. Gmitro did his own Google search — for the definition of "diploma mill" — and found the following: "an organization that awards academic degrees or diplomas with substandard or no academic study," and "an unscrupulous business that sells degrees with cursory or no course work required."

"From the idea of the rigor involved in the academic end of in it, I don't see it at all as a diploma mill," Gmitro said of the University of Santa Barbara.

No accreditation

However, the University of Santa Barbara is not listed on the Council for Higher Education Accreditation's database of programs and institutions accredited by recognized U.S. accrediting organizations.

"We've looked back, and we just don't see where that school has been accredited," said Tim Wilford, a CHEA spokesman.

That's because the University of Santa Barbara was never nationally accredited.

So said Ken Stokes, who earned a doctor of philosophy in business administration from the school and, as a former member of the school's board of directors, volunteered to be its "custodian of records" once it went out of business "several years ago."

Diploma mill or not, the University of Santa Barbara is no more.

In its 30-plus year history, though, about 1,000 people graduated from the University of Santa Barbara, "including some of the top school superintendents in the United States," Stokes said.

Those students had to have master's degrees from accredited institutions to enroll, were assigned professors once they entered the program, and had to complete 52 units of study that required them to "write papers and demonstrate that learning had taken place," said Stokes

At the end of their studies, each of these students had to write a dissertation and present it to a dissertation commission.

However, when it operated, the school was not accredited by a national accrediting organization. Stokes said the university was "approved by the California State Department of Education and the Bureau of Private Post Secondary Education as a degree-granting institution."

'Outstanding student'

When contacted Thursday afternoon, Stokes said he had just sent Mitrovich's transcripts to Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates. So he was familiar with Mitrovich's marks.

"He did graduate, he did get a degree, and he was an outstanding student," Stokes said of Mitrovich.

Gmitro said Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates' research into this matter has shown that Mitrovich spent three years studying with the university. The school allowed for "distance learning" during the school year, but required students to spend their summers on campus, taking courses with professors and other students in the program. Mitrovich completed a research project and a juried dissertation, which he presented to multiple commissions.

"There's a huge difference between a university that is not accredited and a diploma mill," Gmitro said.

He also stressed that Mitrovich never tried to pass off his Ph.D. as being from an accredited institution with a similar name, such as the University of California — Santa Barbara, and that Mitrovich was upfront and straightforward in addressing this issue with the board once it arose earlier this week.

"I don't feel as though the wool was pulled over anyone's eyes," he said.

Multiple criteria

Educational background is but one piece of the criteria the board used to assess Mitrovich and the other candidates who hope to be the district's next superintendent.

"More importantly, their professional experience is another piece of it," said Gmitro, before rattling off some achievements of Mitrovich's 30-year career as an educator.

He served as a high school principal, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction and, eventually, superintendent of Peninsula School District, a 15-school district in Gig Harbor, Wash. He was named the state's principal of the year in 1991, and its superintendent of the year in 1998.

As principal of Clarkson High School, he led the successful Schools for the 21st Century Grant that created a "fully integrated local and global network." He later worked with Microsoft to initiate the Anywhere, Anytime Learning Program, which "infused laptop computer technology for students and staff" into his and many other districts.

Also, Mitrovich served as an adviser to the New York City Board of Education, the Ministries of Education in New Zealand, the State of Victoria in Australia, and to Digital Harbor: The Commonwealth Technology Port for Australia.

When he left his position as Peninsula School District's superintendent in 1999, he co-founded EdGate, a company that provides K-12 solutions to improve student performance via the Internet. He has served as the company's chief education officer for the past 10 years.

He has also worked as a consultant to Microsoft, Apple and other technology firms, and is the developer of Total Reader, a Web-based reading assessment program for K-20 for both the education and business worlds.

Mitrovich not worried

Mitrovich asserted that this information, and the positive reports board members have received from those he has worked with, speak more about him and what he's capable of than his doctorate degree does.

"I guess who I am and what I've done is recognized by enough people that I respect that, if I was what was implied by this e-mail, I'd have been exposed long before this," Mitrovich said.

Mitrovich said he started work on his doctoral degree at Washington State University, but learned that, due to the school's residency requirements, he'd have to leave his high school principal position for a year, and try to support his family of three on about $23,000 a year.

"That, financially, was not possible for me," Mitrovich said.

At the same time, Washington State University visited his school and said it was "so far ahead of the curve" as far as technology was concerned that they couldn't send student teachers there.

Then through a chance encounter at a computer conference, he learned of the University of Santa Barbara. There, he not only found an opportunity to earn his doctoral degree through "distance learning," which the school was pioneering, but, in the school's administrators and professors, many of whom were associated with the University of California, he found "kindred spirits that knew where I wanted to go" with regard to technology.

"It was what I was looking for, it met my circumstances, and it understood technology in schools," Mitrovich said the University of Santa Barbara.

So he transferred there, and found the program was similar to what he'd experienced and expected. The coursework was rigorous and his own work was picked apart by his professors in every imaginable way, he said. He knew the school was not nationally accredited, but was told it was working toward it, and that such accreditation would be retroactive, covering students who graduated before the status was achieved.

He said this is the first time he has ever had to defend his degree.

"If it were a diploma mill and was in business to make money then it wasn't very good," he said of University of Santa Barbara. "No, they were more concerned about the experience than they were about cranking graduates through."

Board President Suzyn Price said "nothing has changed," and she still sees Mitrovich as the same man the board voted to hire Monday.

She said the board expected its next superintendent to have a Ph.D., and that every candidate it considered for the superintendent position had one. The University of Santa Barbara was not a "fly-by-night" operation; it was around for 30 years, she said.

But, she added, that particular line on Mitrovich's resume wasn't what made the board want to hire him.

"We looked at what he has accomplished in his career," Price said. "The extraordinary work he has done in school districts, and his ability to be innovative in education, and that hasn't changed."

[steckdad]

Feb 6, 2009 6:25:24 GMT -5 title1parent said:

www.suburbanchicagonews.com/napervillesun/news/1416782,Questions-superintendent_na020609.article


Questions arise over Mitrovich's degree
But Mitrovich says he's glad he attended unaccredited university

February 6, 2009

By TIM WALDORF [e-mail]
It didn't take long for The Sun's online community to begin sizing up Mark Mitrovich, Naperville School District 203's next superintendent.

About 13 hours after the District 203 board approved his three-year, $203,000 contract during its Monday meeting, "J Deckston Benstoe," an online reader of The Naperville Sun, suggested someone conduct a Google search of the phrases "University of Santa Barbara" and "diploma mill," which is a search that returns plenty of reading. Mitrovich earned his doctor of philosophy in education degree from the school in 1993.
)
"Do we vet candidates prior to hiring them for a position like this? Do we ask them why they got a bogus degree?"

But "bogus degree" is a description with which Mitrovich deeply disagreed.

"This was not a place where you wrote a check, somebody slammed you with a piece of paper, and you went off and called yourself a doctor," Mitrovich said.

"Diploma mill" isn't an accurate description either, according to Hank Gmitro, an associate with Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, the search firm the district paid at least $19,000 to help it select a successor to current Superintendent Alan Leis. Gmitro did his own Google search — for the definition of "diploma mill" — and found the following: "an organization that awards academic degrees or diplomas with substandard or no academic study," and "an unscrupulous business that sells degrees with cursory or no course work required."

"From the idea of the rigor involved in the academic end of in it, I don't see it at all as a diploma mill," Gmitro said of the University of Santa Barbara.

No accreditation

However, the University of Santa Barbara is not listed on the Council for Higher Education Accreditation's database of programs and institutions accredited by recognized U.S. accrediting organizations.

"We've looked back, and we just don't see where that school has been accredited," said Tim Wilford, a CHEA spokesman.

That's because the University of Santa Barbara was never nationally accredited.

So said Ken Stokes, who earned a doctor of philosophy in business administration from the school and, as a former member of the school's board of directors, volunteered to be its "custodian of records" once it went out of business "several years ago."

Diploma mill or not, the University of Santa Barbara is no more.

In its 30-plus year history, though, about 1,000 people graduated from the University of Santa Barbara, "including some of the top school superintendents in the United States," Stokes said.

Those students had to have master's degrees from accredited institutions to enroll, were assigned professors once they entered the program, and had to complete 52 units of study that required them to "write papers and demonstrate that learning had taken place," said Stokes

At the end of their studies, each of these students had to write a dissertation and present it to a dissertation commission.

However, when it operated, the school was not accredited by a national accrediting organization. Stokes said the university was "approved by the California State Department of Education and the Bureau of Private Post Secondary Education as a degree-granting institution."

'Outstanding student'

When contacted Thursday afternoon, Stokes said he had just sent Mitrovich's transcripts to Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates. So he was familiar with Mitrovich's marks.

"He did graduate, he did get a degree, and he was an outstanding student," Stokes said of Mitrovich.

Gmitro said Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates' research into this matter has shown that Mitrovich spent three years studying with the university. The school allowed for "distance learning" during the school year, but required students to spend their summers on campus, taking courses with professors and other students in the program. Mitrovich completed a research project and a juried dissertation, which he presented to multiple commissions.

"There's a huge difference between a university that is not accredited and a diploma mill," Gmitro said.

He also stressed that Mitrovich never tried to pass off his Ph.D. as being from an accredited institution with a similar name, such as the University of California — Santa Barbara, and that Mitrovich was upfront and straightforward in addressing this issue with the board once it arose earlier this week.

"I don't feel as though the wool was pulled over anyone's eyes," he said.

Multiple criteria

Educational background is but one piece of the criteria the board used to assess Mitrovich and the other candidates who hope to be the district's next superintendent.

"More importantly, their professional experience is another piece of it," said Gmitro, before rattling off some achievements of Mitrovich's 30-year career as an educator.

He served as a high school principal, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction and, eventually, superintendent of Peninsula School District, a 15-school district in Gig Harbor, Wash. He was named the state's principal of the year in 1991, and its superintendent of the year in 1998.

As principal of Clarkson High School, he led the successful Schools for the 21st Century Grant that created a "fully integrated local and global network." He later worked with Microsoft to initiate the Anywhere, Anytime Learning Program, which "infused laptop computer technology for students and staff" into his and many other districts.

Also, Mitrovich served as an adviser to the New York City Board of Education, the Ministries of Education in New Zealand, the State of Victoria in Australia, and to Digital Harbor: The Commonwealth Technology Port for Australia.

When he left his position as Peninsula School District's superintendent in 1999, he co-founded EdGate, a company that provides K-12 solutions to improve student performance via the Internet. He has served as the company's chief education officer for the past 10 years.

He has also worked as a consultant to Microsoft, Apple and other technology firms, and is the developer of Total Reader, a Web-based reading assessment program for K-20 for both the education and business worlds.

Mitrovich not worried

Mitrovich asserted that this information, and the positive reports board members have received from those he has worked with, speak more about him and what he's capable of than his doctorate degree does.

"I guess who I am and what I've done is recognized by enough people that I respect that, if I was what was implied by this e-mail, I'd have been exposed long before this," Mitrovich said.

Mitrovich said he started work on his doctoral degree at Washington State University, but learned that, due to the school's residency requirements, he'd have to leave his high school principal position for a year, and try to support his family of three on about $23,000 a year.

"That, financially, was not possible for me," Mitrovich said.

At the same time, Washington State University visited his school and said it was "so far ahead of the curve" as far as technology was concerned that they couldn't send student teachers there.

Then through a chance encounter at a computer conference, he learned of the University of Santa Barbara. There, he not only found an opportunity to earn his doctoral degree through "distance learning," which the school was pioneering, but, in the school's administrators and professors, many of whom were associated with the University of California, he found "kindred spirits that knew where I wanted to go" with regard to technology.

"It was what I was looking for, it met my circumstances, and it understood technology in schools," Mitrovich said the University of Santa Barbara.

So he transferred there, and found the program was similar to what he'd experienced and expected. The coursework was rigorous and his own work was picked apart by his professors in every imaginable way, he said. He knew the school was not nationally accredited, but was told it was working toward it, and that such accreditation would be retroactive, covering students who graduated before the status was achieved.

He said this is the first time he has ever had to defend his degree.

"If it were a diploma mill and was in business to make money then it wasn't very good," he said of University of Santa Barbara. "No, they were more concerned about the experience than they were about cranking graduates through."

Board President Suzyn Price said "nothing has changed," and she still sees Mitrovich as the same man the board voted to hire Monday.

She said the board expected its next superintendent to have a Ph.D., and that every candidate it considered for the superintendent position had one. The University of Santa Barbara was not a "fly-by-night" operation; it was around for 30 years, she said.

But, she added, that particular line on Mitrovich's resume wasn't what made the board want to hire him.

"We looked at what he has accomplished in his career," Price said. "The extraordinary work he has done in school districts, and his ability to be innovative in education, and that hasn't changed."

I have read elsewhere "what a great hire" and "how did we end up with DrD" without the guy even working one day for dist. 203.

now he has an online degree? yeesh.....

[title1parent]

www.suburbanchicagonews.com/napervillesun/news/opinions/1419166,6_4_NA08_EDITORIAL_S1.article

Academic credentials important for school chief

February 8, 2009 Sun Opinion

Should a degree from an unaccredited university be considered as genuine or phony?

To be precise, should the Naperville School District 203 Board of Education have decided to hire as its new superintendent of schools -- at a cost to taxpayers of $203,000 a year -- someone whose doctorate degree is from a school that not only was not accredited but only existed for a scant 33 years?

Mark Mitrovich, the newly minted superintendent for the district, received his doctoral degree in education from the University of Santa Barbara (not to be confused with the University of California at Santa Barbara, though that name similarity may be part of the problem), an institution in existence from 1973 to 2006, when it closed its doors.

To be fair to Mitrovich, he has a 30-year career in education in which he was a high school principal, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction and, eventually, superintendent of a 15-school district.

He also has served as an adviser to the New York City Board of Education, the Ministries of Education in New Zealand, and other institutions worldwide.

And to top all that off, he is a co-founder of EdGate, a company that provides K-12 solutions to improve student performance via the Internet.

In other words, his work credentials are not the issue.

Both the consultant the school district paid $19,000 to help it find a new superintendent and the school board president defend the choice.

Hank Gmitro of Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, said that "from the idea of the rigor involved in the academic end of it, I don't see it all as a diploma mill."

While it existed, the university had a three-year Ph.D. program mostly conducted long distance but with the summers on campus.

However, we would venture to say that there may be many holders of doctorates who spent long, nose-to-the-grindstone years at an accredited university who might view this somewhat differently.

For her part, school board President Suzyn Price said the board looked at the "extraordinary work he has done in school districts, and his ability to be innovative in education, and that hasn't changed."

Mitrovich himself said the coursework he took was rigorous and said this was the first time he has ever had to defend his degree.

Frankly, it shouldn't be the first and his doctorate should have been questioned by both the consultant and the school board.

It may be considered elitist, or at least stuffy, to say so, but academic credentials are important and the district and its consultant should have considered them so before the district signed on the dotted line.

[WeNeed3]

Mitrovich prepared to defend dissertation


February 8, 2009

By TIM WALDORF [e-mail]

Mark Mitrovich has one hard copy of the dissertation he wrote to complete his doctor of philosophy in education degree from the University of Santa Barbara.

He said Thursday that copy was en route from his Gig Harbor, Wash., home to Illinois, and it could be in the hands of Naperville School District 203 officials as early as Monday.


Friday afternoon, the District 203 board announced it would conduct a closed-session meeting pertaining to "appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees of the district." The meeting will take place at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the District 203 Administrative Center, 203 W. Hillside Road.

It is the board's practice not to discuss specific details of its closed-session proceedings.

'Never heard of them'
Earlier this week, an online reader of The Naperville Sun suggested someone conduct a Google search of the phrases "University of Santa Barbara" and "diploma mill," which is a search that returns plenty of reading.
"Do we vet candidates prior to hiring them for a position like this? Do we ask them why they got a bogus degree?" asked the reader.

Indeed, University of Santa Barbara officially closed its doors in 2006, and in the 30 years it operated, it was never accredited by a recognized U.S. accrediting organization, according to the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. In fact, the Western Association for Schools and Colleges -- Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities could find "no record" of the University of Santa Barbara ever having submitted itself to this process.

"I'm pretty certain they have never applied for accreditation," said Ray Lui, WASC-ACSCU executive assistant to the president and executive director. "We have never heard of them."

Degree was earned
But Mitrovich and Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates -- the district-hired superintendent search consultants who presented Mitrovich as a candidate for the position -- have defended the degree, saying University of Santa Barbara's lack of accreditation didn't make it a "diploma mill."
According to Hank Gmitro, an associate with Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, Mitrovich spent three years studying with the university. The school allowed for "distance learning" during the school year, but required students to spend their summers on campus, taking courses with professors and other students in the program. Mitrovich completed 52 hours of study, which included a research project and his juried dissertation, which he presented to multiple commissions.

"This was not a place where you wrote a check, somebody slammed you with a piece of paper, and you went off and called yourself a doctor," Mitrovich said.

Ph.D. expected, not required
District 203 board President Suzyn Price said Thursday that "nothing has changed," and that she still sees Mitrovich as the same man the board voted to hire Monday. It didn't hire Mitrovich because of his doctorate degree, she said.
"We looked at what he has accomplished in his career," Price said. "The extraordinary work he has done in school districts, and his ability to be innovative in education, and that hasn't changed."

Price also said, "of course we would expect our superintendent to have a Ph.D.," and she noted that every candidate the board considered for the position had one. She said University of Santa Barbara was not a "fly-by-night" operation; it was around for 30 years.

The state of Illinois does not require school superintendents to have doctorate degrees.

Rather, they must have master's degrees, general administration certificates and at least two years of experience as an administrator. They must also complete coursework for the state's superintendent endorsement, or have an endorsement from another state. Also, within a year from their hire date, they must pass a basic skills test in English and mathematics, and pass a test specific to their superintendent's endorsement.

Mitrovich, who served as superintendent of Peninsula School District in Gig Harbor, earned his superintendent credentials from Washington State University.

[title1parent]

www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=270782&src=76

District 203 taking second look at superintendent pick
By Melissa Jenco | Daily Herald 2/10/2009

The Naperville Unit District 203 school board is reviewing its pick for superintendent in light of revelations his doctorate is from an unaccredited university.

The board is examining Mark Mitrovich's doctoral dissertation and plans to discuss his selection at 7 p.m. today behind closed doors.

President Suzyn Price said the board wants to study the dissertation and "ensure it was as rigorous as we believe it to be."

The board unanimously approved hiring Mitrovich last week after a nationwide search to replace retiring Superintendent Alan Leis. He is scheduled to assume the role July 1.

Mitrovich, 63, serves as chief education officer for EdGate, a Seattle-area company he co-founded. He spent 30 years in education, including a stint as superintendent of Peninsula School District in Gig Harbor, Wash.

But within days of his hiring in District 203, critics began questioning his credentials.

Mitrovich's doctoral degree is from the University of Santa Barbara, which closed in 2006. The university was not nationally accredited, although it was approved by the California Department of Education and its private postsecondary bureau as a degree-granting institution.

Mitrovich attended the school from 1991 to 1993 - at times as part of a distance-learning program - and wrote his 100-plus page dissertation on the impact of principals on infusing technology into schools.

"I think it was done in all earnestness and standards that are acceptable in terms of that type of work," he said Monday.

He has said he was drawn to the university by the reputation of its instructors and the opportunity to pursue his degree remotely. He always has listed the university with his credentials and says he got a good education both from the school and through his professional experience.

Price said the board received Mitrovich's school transcripts through its search firm, Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, on Feb. 2, the day it hired the educator.

It wasn't until the day after the vote that board members learned Mitrovich's university was not accredited.

"I would have hoped the search firm would have had this information prior to the decision," Price said. "You want to have all the information you can possibly get."

Hank Gmitro, an associate with the firm and superintendent of Carol Stream District 93, said it is typical to do background checks only on the top one or two candidates because they include records on finances, criminal history, education and more.

The search firm contracted with Baker-Eubanks to do the background checks but that company initially contacted the wrong university, contributing to the delay.

Once the mistake was corrected, it took time to obtain the proper records because the university had closed.

Gmitro said he is responsible for the delay in getting the information to the board and will look at ways to improve the process. Mitrovich, he said, was always straightforward about his educational background.

District 203 already has paid the search firm roughly half of its $19,000 fee, officials said.

Gmitro said a representative of the company will be at tonight's meeting.

What the credential flap will mean to Mitrovich's future with District 203 remains to be seen.

Before the district launched its search, it created a list of desired characteristics for its new superintendent that indicated a doctorate from an accredited university was "preferred."

District 203 teachers who pursue an advanced degree are required to attend accredited institutions for it to count toward a salary increase.

Asked if he felt the lack of accreditation is a problem for his successor, Leis said it is "something the board is going to have to wrestle with because ultimately it's a board decision. My job is to stay focused on making the best transition possible."

Leis said he did not take part in the interview process with the candidates.

The school board did not introduce Mitrovich to the community until after it voted to hire him.

Price said she would not discuss the effect of the credential issue until after the board has a chance to meet as a group.

Mitrovich is flying into town tonight with plans to assist the district in its search for new principals at Naperville Central and Naperville North high schools beginning Wednesday. He said he may attend tonight's board meeting if he arrives on time.

Mitrovich said he has signed his contract, but Price said Monday she had not yet done so.

The pact is a three-year deal with a salary of $203,000.

[asmodeus]

Mitrovich said he has signed his contract, but Price said Monday she had not yet done so.

I see a lawsuit now if they don't hire him.

It's amazing a search firm that is paid $19,000 did not provide the board with this piece of information. So now, the district will be out the 19k and will likely be forced to keep the guy.