Less than a month into her new job, DeKalb school Superintendent Cheryl L.H. Atkinson is confident that the troubled district can regain its luster, saying, “We are a step away from great.”
That comment will spark skepticism from parents who contend the DeKalb is a step away from falling off a cliff, but Atkinson brimmed with optimism in an interview at The Atlanta-Journal Constitution last week.
She said she already knows the main problem in DeKalb: the culture.
“What we have to have is a sense of urgency. I am pushing to get things addressed as quickly as they can without me putting the cart before the horse. We need to make sure that we understand that our role is to serve, period,” she said. “The second piece is putting your money where your mouth is — we need to start to look at resources and drive them to the schools.”
Atkinson is undertaking an external review of the system’s organization and compensation and is in the process of hiring consultants. She believes that there’s overlap within the system that is wasting money, as well as programs that have outlived their usefulness.
She wants the first phase of the study — an examination of everyone in the central office, instructional coaches, assistant principals and principals through a lens of function, organization and salary — to her desk by Jan. 15.
Atkinson wants the second phase, a review of school staffing, in March. “Do we need more literacy coaches? Are we fairly compensating people?”
And if Atkinson finds employees whose pay exceeds their responsibilities? “I believe we will be within our rights to say we are no longer going to have these jobs,” she said. “This is the job; this is the work; this is the salary.”
Atkinson would not predict how much the consultants’ study could produce in savings, but said, “This will be more than just organization, structure and personnel. When you combine those with looking at programs that have outlived their usefulness, we will probably get some pretty good numbers.”
Earlier in her day, Atkinson visited eight schools; she has visited 64 of the 137 in DeKalb and intends to get to all of them in her first 90 days, as she promised.
She admits the visits are quick, walking and talking at once. And she recognizes that she is coming in the front door so everyone is prepared.
“You can still see culture and you can see the climate,” she said.
In one elementary school, Atkinson was wowed by the science lab and asked whether all elementary schools in the system have such labs.
When she was told that they did not, Atkinson said she intends to learn why.
“That is something we should have in every school,” she said. “These are non-negotiables that every child should have exposure to in their schools.”
Her own son decided to pursue becoming a cardiovascular surgeon after going to a clinic, meeting a surgeon, and holding a diseased heart and a healthy heart in his hands. “If every child had the opportunity to attend this program ... think how many more cardiovascular surgeons are out there who we haven’t tapped yet,” Atkinson said.
“I think it is important that a child who wants to play a trombone be able to play it, regardless of what school they are in,” she said.
Atkinson’s first hurdle will be the Nov. 8 vote to extend a 1-cent sales tax that could raise $475 million for school construction and capital improvements in her system.
But an affirmative vote on the special purpose local option sales tax — normally a shoo-in with pro-school DeKalb voters — has been jeopardized by scandal; former DeKalb school chief Crawford Lewis is facing racketeering charges over the alleged improper use of $80 million in school construction funds.
“Any time you talk about that amount of money coming in, there will be some handicap if you don’t get it. Call it what it is. It will be a handicap,” Atkinson said.
But one handicap that she believes can be overcome: losing good educators to other systems.
“The first thing we have to end is the culture of doing it just to do it, not because it makes a difference,” she said. “We have to be careful that we don’t just make people sit through meetings just to check it off and say it’s done. That is frustrating. People want to make a difference.”
And she wants spending that makes a difference. Now, when asked about grant applications for new programs, Atkinson said she asks the staff, “Who is it going to benefit? If they can’t tell me, I say take it off the agenda. It puts them in a tailspin.”
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