Are you familiar with Skyline High?  That school where principals only last around a year?  It’s kind of depressing to report that no one wants the job at this point.

The Tribune’s Katy Murphy recently confirmed the latest selection, Lauren Klaffky, decided against taking the post.  We’ll never know her exact reasons but that’s water under the bridge.  The Skyline search committee will need to soldier on.

We’re wondering how this leadership gap affects the morale of teachers and students.  If history repeats itself, then Skyline students are going to feel some pain.  When the 2006 school year began without a principal, it wasn’t pretty.  “It’s like nobody knows anything, basically,” said one 16-year-old student.

Two other principals followed since then, including the firing of the last one.  That means the Class of 2010 students, by graduation, will have welcomed four different leaders and learned the meaning of fungible:

fun-gi-ble: (adjective) – being of such nature or kind as to be freely exchangeable or replaceable, in whole or in part, for another of like nature or kind.

The teachers aren’t saying much, but at least one reacted to the search with equanimity:  “There are some big shifts happening at the school next year and maybe it’s better if teachers have to shoulder the responsibility to make sure they come off.  Certainly, waiting for a savior is not a good strategy for improving such a large, complex institution.”

Skyline has over 2,000 students and is the only public secondary school sitting in the Oakland Hills.  Maybe we could rally and figure this one out.  Kind of embarrassing, huh?