By Matthew Ricchiazzi:
Ninety minutes before the beginning of Wednesday’s school board meeting, Superintendent Pamela Brown (photo) held a press conference outlining an internal reorganization plan. It was refreshingly aggressive, albeit limited in scope to the central office. When pressed for details, the Superintendent made clear that much of the eventual reorganization beyond ‘Phase 1’ has not been decided yet.
Effective immediately, Dr. Mary Guinn has been appointed Interim Deputy Superintendent and we’re told that a national search will be conducted to identify a permanent Deputy Superintendent, to be put in place next year. The position will serve as a Chief Operating Officer who is also responsible for finance, curriculum, staff development, and instruction. The Superintendent will then focus on strategy, partnerships, and interfacing with community stakeholders. The current Chief of Staff position will be eliminated.
Phase 1 of the multi-phased reorganization will introduce new job descriptions throughout the central office, redrawing chains of command, and reallocating job responsibilities. The Superintendent will meet with current staffers to assess their fit in the organization. Current employees will either be refit in the organization or let go. Dr. Brown’s goal is to have all staffers in their new positions by June 30, the end of the current fiscal year (when central staff contracts typically expire).
When asked if she will consider applicants with private sector executive experience, she said that she “is determined to ensure that the right person is in every position,” whether or not they currently work for the district. She stopped short of saying that she would aggressively recruit new staff with private sector experiences.
In the aggregate, there will be cost savings, which the Superintendent says is by design, as she wants to shift more and more resources into the schools themselves – at a time when next year’s budget deficit has been projected as high as $51 million. That means a reduction in total central office staffing levels. Dr. Brown said that “this process is an opportunity for current staff to find themselves and where they best fit.”
The Superintendent said that the central office must do more to “support” schools, and so is creating four “Chiefs of School Leadership” who will each be responsible for “supporting” a portfolio of campuses. They will each lead a large team of eleven staff coaches with discipline specializations, seven project administrators who will dually report to other central office departments, three middle management positions, and one clerical support position.
Dr. Brown said that, as campuses prove themselves and demonstrate solid performance that they would “earn” additional “autonomy,” but that word was mentioned only once.
Does “support” and “coaching” from the central office add any value at all?
As refreshingly aggressive as this reorganization plan was, if I were still sitting in an Operations, M&A, or a Turnaround Restructuring course in business school and looking at BPS as a case study, I would be quite critical. I worry that it doesn’t go nearly far enough.
I pressed the Superintendent for more clarity on her management philosophy and how she sees the relationship between the central office and the campuses. Throughout the press conference she had been using the term “support” and “coaching” to describe how the central office interfaces with campuses.
It seemed like she hadn’t thought much about it, and was caught slightly off guard. She gave a substantive response, for what it was, about ensuring that we “don’t get lost in silos” and making sure that “we have the right people in the right positions,” – but I was concerned, because the precise role of the central office should be the driver of the office’s reorganization.
I would contend that the role of the central office should be limited to that of a performance monitor and data publisher. To think that someone on the eighth floor of city hall can meaningfully impact the day to day operations of a school, because he or she “supports” and “coaches” principles is unfounded – and I would suggest – little more than new age feel goodery.
The reorganization plan fails to make the case that the central office is best suited – or even capable – of providing active hands on management of the campuses. By my count, the reorganization allocates 88 central office positions to perform functions that attempt to “operate” campuses.
It would be a better allocation of resources to eliminate those 88 administrators from the central office, and instead hire 10 new teachers to work with the lowest performing students at the 10 most challenged schools.
We need to start empowering principles. They are on the ground; they are best positioned to understand those challenges. They should not be treated as liaisons to a central office bureaucrat. They should be treated like Chief Executives with full management authorities and independence from the central office.
Let’s start equipping principals inside their campuses before we start re-staffing the central office.
An aside, on the micro politics of personality….
I’m told that the board members were presented with the reorganization plan last week, so the only two board members present for the press conference were Barbara Nevergold-Seals and Roslyn Taylor, who were both visibly irked throughout. Raised eyebrows, arms crossed, elbows postured, an unbroken stare, and the look of being simultaneously surprised and offended.
Immediately following the press conference, Dr. Brown approached Ms. Taylor, who asked “Well, do we need to cancel the meeting now?”
Dr. Brown responded, surprised but in a deliberately calming tone: “Oh no, why would we do that?”
Ms. Taylor, in an insistent manner: “We all need to go ask Ruth [Kapsiak] about this,” as if to suggest that someone was going to be angry. The three then scurried to find Ms. Kapsiak in an office just off of the boardroom. They then locked themselves in an office/lunchroom for about half an hour.
What it means, I don’t know. Maybe the press conference was different than the presentation they had been given last week? Maybe the teachers’ union convinced them that they should be angry? Maybe they were hoping for a slower a process in which they could play defense for their friends’ on the central staff? I don’t know, but I would have liked to have been a fly on that wall.