Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Sunday, August 13, 2006
Starting at the top — a new breed of principals
(Charity Adams Earley Academy Principal Peggy Burks)
By Scott Elliott
Staff Writer
DAYTON — The words to the song “What a Wonderful World,” carried by a little girl’s voice, echoed across the cavernous basketball arena while 2,500 people cooed.
But it wasn’t just this first-grade vocal powder keg wrapped in a blue dress and topped with white hair bows that Superintendent Percy Mack noticed during convocation earlier this month.
As he delighted in Briennon Saddler’s rendition Louis Armstrong’s famous song, Mack thought also of the former music teacher seated next to her, rolling out a melody on a small keyboard — Peggy Burks, the principal of Charity Adams Earley Academy for Girls.
“That beautiful singing, that voice, I know that probably was already there,” he said of Briennon. “But her poise, and that little curtsey at the end? That was all Peggy Burks.”
Burks is part of a new class of leaders in the district, principals hand-picked by Mack to reshape Dayton’s schools.
Since Mack took the reins in 2002, he has replaced more than half the district’s principals. While more than a quarter of Dayton’s principals are newcomers from outside like Burks, the majority of Mack’s picks were top teachers and assistant principals groomed through leadership programs he beefed up or put in place.
Today’s Dayton principals are a little greener than in the past, but the atmosphere they work in has changed. More is expected and evaluations are tougher, but the pay is better and new school concepts are helping Mack attract good candidates.
“He wants a class act — people he can be proud of,” Burks said.
Judy Hennessey already had a good job. She was just the superintendent in Oakwood, Dayton’s wealthiest and most school-centric suburb — and one of the best scoring school districts in Ohio.
Back then, in 2004, Hennessey knew Dayton Superintendent Percy Mack as a thoughtful, collaborative colleague who came to monthly county superintendent meetings, something prior Dayton school chiefs rarely did.
So when Mack and University of Dayton education dean Tom Lasley asked her about heading up the Dayton Early College Academy experimental high school, Hennessey didn’t hesitate. She left Oakwood and became a Dayton principal.
“I was inspired,” she said. “I don’t think that’s an overstatement.”
The year before Mack took over, in 2001, Dayton school principals were a mostly static, insular bunch. Only four of 38 came to their jobs from outside the district. More than a quarter were also district principals in their prior jobs.
Even with the district ranked among the worst in the state, none had been evaluated in two years and every one received an acceptable rating in 1999.
Today, 10 of 38 came from outside and just six were district principals in their last jobs.
Mack has put a new evaluation system in place that measures test score growth and attendance, but also seeks to quantify how well principals lead, use data, help parents and handle conflict. It’s one of the changes he credits with helping to lift the district out of the state’s lowest rating of “academic emergency.”
“You have to get your best people in those schools,” he said. “That’s where the rubber meets the road.”
Mack started with one-on-one meetings with principals that first year, laying out his expectations and asking, “Do you have the energy?”
Many answered yes. Some were ready to retire. A few heeded his caution and found other roles.
“There’s nothing wrong with admitting you don’t have the will,” he said. “Some realized their strengths were elsewhere in the organization.”
Pay was upgraded, too. The average principal now makes $76,243, up $13,048 from 2001 — a gain more than twice the rate of inflation.
To find good candidates, Mack first looked inside, asking Willie McGrady, the executive director for school operations he brought with him from Georgia, to create a leadership academy for top teachers with potential.
“We had to start developing our own people,” Mack said. “People who have good skills sometimes won’t step out there. You sometimes need to tap them.”
Jalma Fields, second-year principal of Meadowdale Elementary School, was one of those who needed a nudge.
Fields, the district’s teacher of the year in 2004, had turned down prior invitations to become a principal. But soon, she was drafted for the leadership program. McGrady paired her with former Meadowdale Principal Barbara Goins as a mentor. When Goins retired, Fields finally felt ready.
“It was being in the leadership program and having a chance to work with Willie McGrady,” she said. “I learned so much from him.”
Fields counted at least six others from her leadership class of about 12 who are now principals or assistant principals.
Mack also took a personal interest in leaderhip, selecting finalists and conducts interviews for every principal and assistant principal job.
New ideas and experiments also created interest. Hennessey’s school, DECA, is one of the few in the nation that seeks to graduate seniors with a diploma and an associate’s degree.
David White was comfortable as assistant superintendent at the ISUS Trade and Tech Prep High School, a highly regarded charter school for dropouts. But he loved the idea of the Dayton Technology Design High School, a last chance program in which kids collaborate to build an educational video game.
“How cool is it to start your own school?” he said. “I couldn’t pass up trying to get that job.”
And there was Peggy Burks.
Like Hennessey, she had a good job, leading a Wright State University research project on inner city teaching practices. At a meeting with Mack he mentioned the idea of a girls school.
Right there she told him she wanted to be the principal. Starting a new school, rather than taking one over, was a perfect challenge for Burks.
“School climate and culture is already set and changing it is like using a short-handled ladle to stir a big cauldron,” she said. “You never can reach the bottom or get the mix just right.”
Mack took a wait-and-see approach. People always say they want big jobs, he said, but not everyone is cut out.
“I knew she had great skills, but principalship is different from just about any other job you can do,” he said. “It takes a skilled technician. It takes high energy. It takes someone who in a lot of ways puts the school ahead of themselves.”
He asked Burks to craft a five-year plan for the school. As he read it, her enthusiasm jumped off the page.
“When I saw that plan, that’s when I knew she was the one,” he said.
(Image credit: Dave Munch, DDN)
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