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Schools

Wilcox blazing trail of candor

New Pinellas school leader Clayton Wilcox is blunt about his desire to bring new focus to the school district.

By THOMAS C. TOBIN
Published February 20, 2005

On a Thursday morning this month at Pinellas school headquarters, dozens of seasoned administrators came to hear the new boss.

Before them stood superintendent Clayton M. Wilcox - casual, quick with a joke, uncommonly candid. He spoke of a new "sense of urgency" for a district that clearly has lost a step to Florida's other large counties.

"You've got to keep getting better," he told his new colleagues, pointing to student performance numbers that aren't keeping up with government expectations. "Not just incrementally better, but by leaps and bounds."

Just 31/2 months into his superintendency, Wilcox is working hard to reorganize, refocus and re-energize the district, all but abandoning his earlier plan to make "evolutionary, not revolutionary change." He also has been the sober public face of a system in crisis.

The Feb. 11 traffic death of 8-year-old Brooke Ingoldsby marked the second time in four months a student was killed in traffic after being dropped off by a school bus at an unsafe location on a busy road.

In both instances, Wilcox, 49, spoke publicly and bluntly about flaws in the district's bus system while promising quick reform - a stark change in style from his predecessor, Howard Hinesley, who played closer to the vest.

Opening last week's news conference on Ingoldsby's death, Wilcox said: "This conversation that we're about to have is part of, I think, a more open, more candid school district."

Some welcome Wilcox's frank assessments as long overdue. Others see arrogance in the suggestion he sometimes creates that the district did little right before he arrived.

Some are trying to figure out what he meant when he said at a televised luncheon that the school district has too many administrators. Speaking to another group recently, he referred to some district administrators as "dead wood." In a recent memo, he called some of them "assorted hangers-on."

At an awards ceremony in December, he asked a group of top administrators to kneel and bow with him before a roomful of support employees. The gesture was an attempt to pay respect and also draw some laughs. Some said they found it demeaning.

But on that recent Thursday morning as administrators came to hear Wilcox outline his vision, the new superintendent was calling them "tremendous," the district's "best and brightest."

Yes, he told them, he had been "in-your-face a little bit." If it felt personal, he said, he was sorry.

More important, he said, were the thousands of Pinellas students who are struggling. Their problems were clear in charts that show the district being hit with federal sanctions if performance doesn't rise fast.

"Expect more," Wilcox told them. Working in the old ways would not cut it.

"I am not a bull in a china shop," he said. "I really understand that this is hard work. But we have to become a system that's on a mission ... Time is not our friend."

A tragedy - the death of a 16-year-old Clearwater High student - put Wilcox into high gear from the start.

The district was still in transition Oct. 8, the day Rebecca McKinney was struck by a pickup after getting off a school bus. Hinesley was still in charge while Wilcox served as "superintendent designate" until he took over Nov. 1.

Someone erred in assigning McKinney a bus stop that forced her to cross six lanes of McMullen-Booth Road. The district started an investigation, but its first instinct was to close ranks. Two officials seemed to blame the bus driver. Another made an excuse, saying oversights happen in a big system.

Wilcox was appalled, and said so publicly as the fallout spilled into late October. Not only was the bus system broken, he said, it had shown a "callous disregard" for parents who tried to complain.

For many accustomed to a lawyerly silence on such matters, the sudden burst of candor was a stunner. Working through the holidays, Wilcox followed up with proposals to dramatically restructure the bus system and discipline nine employees.

"I love what he's done with transportation so far," said Kelley Brickfield, a parent and co-chair of the Student Advisory Council at McMullen-Booth Elementary. "I appreciate people who are honest, who say what they think, who don't tell you what they think you want to hear."

If the new superintendent steps on toes at district headquarters, "I don't have a problem with that," Brickfield said. "I haven't heard anybody say, "Oh, I hate this guy."'

A month after taking over, he told all principals to ride a school bus at least three times before the end of the year, both to show support for drivers and stimulate ideas for improvement.

In the same memo, he told other administrators to spend three full days with a teacher "to really see what the life of a classroom teacher has become."

He asked all staff members to join in the hunt for programs that don't affect student performance.

He ended with his signature Latin-Spanish motto, "Carpe Diem. Carpe Manana."

Seize the day. Seize tomorrow.

Within six weeks of Wilcox's start date, the district rolled out a redesigned Web site. Wilcox has since posted his e-mail and daily calendar there - a level of openness well beyond what is customary for a top official in Florida.

Wilcox says the "transparency" will broaden input on solutions.

"I just think you become more trustworthy if people can look at the data," he said. "Plus, I really do believe more heads are better than one."

He also has begun regular summits with high school principals to focus on what has emerged as the district's most pressing problem.

Pinellas' graduation and drop-out rates are worse than the state average. Last year's SAT scores were below the national average for the first time. No Pinellas high school met federal standards last year, and half received D grades from the state.

Wilcox calls those numbers "brutal."

At the last summit, he showcased a computer system that would better track students over time. It would, for example, flag those who do well in class but fail the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

Another Wilcox idea: an automated call system allowing educators to send home timely messages for upcoming events and emergencies. It came in handy in the days after Brooke Ingoldsby's death.

In coming months, Wilcox said he plans to work with the School Board to retool the choice plan and reorder the district's bureaucracy.

He also is pressing Pinellas educators to be more aware of "every minute in the classroom." Out of 1,218 hours in the academic year, he said, schools lose 658 hours to activities such as announcements, assemblies, testing and morning routines, leaving 566 hours for instruction.

"We've got to think differently about the use of time," said Wilcox, who typically works 12 hour days and comes to the office on Saturdays and Sundays.

A smaller change that has people talking is Wilcox's insistence on neatness. His recent request that office employees clean their cubicles has some of them grumbling.

"I just really think that orderliness sends a strong message that you are professional, you know what you're doing, you care about details," said Wilcox, whose practice of picking up paper during school visits has principals on high alert for trash.

"I think he's bringing about change in a very appropriate way: making a case for change, then doing it," said School Board member Jane Gallucci. "The answer we got before was,"Oh, it can't be done.' "

After decades of homegrown superintendents, Wilcox's style since moving from Louisiana is a bit of a shock to the system, said Jade Moore, the long-time director of the Pinellas teachers union.

"We're not used to anything being different," he said. "The good part about the old system was that it never overreacted to anything. But the downfall was that it never reacted to some things."

School Board member Linda Lerner has given voice to those who see Wilcox as too brash.

"I think he is very willing to be honest about our challenges, but not everything is broken," Lerner said. While Wilcox brings many qualities to the job, he should speak with more care, she said. "You can be honest in a positive way."

Lerner has asked Wilcox not to use the word "brutal" when referring to high school data.

Said Wilcox: "There's a piece of me that says kids don't have 'til next year, so I want to create urgency. And you don't create urgency by telling people that they're great. What you create when you tell people that they're great is a little bit of complacency."

Does Wilcox value the district's veteran employees?

"I absolutely do," he said. "But the truth is somewhere in between. How do you ignore all the data? ... At some level we all have responsibility for that."

Motivating a large staff requires a "delicate balance," Wilcox said. "Have I walked up to the edge and looked over? Yeah. But I haven't stepped over ... When you're the superintendent of a large school district you don't get here because you're reckless."

Lerner is among those who were miffed by Wilcox's gag at the awards ceremony, where he asked administrators to kneel, bow to their lower paid colleagues and say, "We're not worthy."

Moore, who was there, called it a sincere but "edgy" gesture that fell flat.

"I didn't know that anyone was offended," said Wilcox, who got the idea from an old Saturday Night Live skit. "For that I would really apologize."

Some of Wilcox's jokes will hit the mark and some won't, Moore said. "He seems comfortable enough with himself to give it a shot and see if it works."

One administrator mentioned the incident in an anonymous letter to the School Board, expressing disgust with Wilcox's style.

The letter also criticized his participation in the Educational Research Development Institute, a private group that invites superintendents to critique products marketed to schools. In return for their input with corporate sponsors at a posh hotel, the institute pays superintendents $2,000.

Lerner has said the arrangement appears to violate the district's policy against employees receiving more than $30 from potential vendors. But Wilcox and other board members say they don't see a conflict. They say the payments don't come directly from the sponsors and that superintendents don't make purchasing decisions unilaterally.

Hinesley attended the conferences as well. Under his contract, Wilcox must attend them on vacation time.

He posted the anonymous letter on the district Web site, calling it "a different perspective."

Aside from the awards ceremony, Wilcox's skills as a public speaker have won him good reviews.

Clearwater parent Patti Baldwin saw him at a ceremony honoring the everyday accomplishments of students at Clearwater High. Wilcox took notes and gave a speech that mentioned kids by name.

"It was just amazing how he did it," she said, adding she also likes that Wilcox has principals riding buses. "That speaks volumes for this man."

Watson Haynes, a black civic leader in St. Petersburg, was skeptical of Wilcox early on. Now he says he's pleased that the achievement gap between black and white students is among the superintendent's top priorities.

"He's not just saying this in front of black audiences," Haynes said. "He had a lot of flash coming in. I was concerned if he was going to stand on his own two feet. But he did."

[Last modified February 20, 2005, 01:13:05]