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Nice to see niceness, but will proper focus follow?

By DIANE STEINLE
Published March 13, 2005

Before last week, the seven members of the Pinellas County School Board had been scrapping like kids in a schoolyard dustup. Then last week, something changed. They transformed from naughty to nice.

The difference was apparent at the March 8 School Board meeting, which was more like a tea party than the slugfests School Board watchers had come to expect.

Board members waited patiently to be recognized by chairwoman Nancy Bostock before speaking. They kept their comments short and on point rather than rambling, speechifying and sniping at each other. They complimented the superintendent. They praised each other. They smiled very sweetly.

They conducted business for more than four hours without any wrasslin'.

What happened?

Well, it could be that the all-day "retreat" the board members went on March 1 helped them. The purpose of that get-together was so they could figure out how to, well, get together on the school district's mission and how to accomplish it. I wasn't there, but the reports I gathered from people who were there weren't very encouraging. The board members quibbled about this and that, until at one point superintendent Clayton Wilcox told them, "The schools already know exactly what they need to do. If you don't assume a leadership role, you will become an anachronism. ... The train is leaving the station. You can decide to get on it, or it will leave without you."

If the retreat wasn't what led to a better meeting last week, perhaps the board was playing nice because its dysfunctional behavior had made the news. The board even received a grade of "F" in a St. Petersburg Times editorial that contended the members are argumentative and preoccupied with minutiae at a time when the school district and its new superintendent are confronted by numerous crises.

At the end of the March 8 meeting, board member Linda Lerner criticized the editorial and said she thought the board did not deserve an F. She talked about how hard the board members work - more than full time, she said. Then Lerner, who has been testy, even shrill, since Wilcox was hired last year, went around the board table to offer a little sugar cube of praise to each member.

She noted that board member Jane Gallucci is an official with the National School Boards Association and has expertise on federal education laws. She praised board member Mary Russell for always reminding the board not to infringe on classroom learning time. To board member Carol Cook, Lerner said, "You've always been the parent connection."

Lerner said member Nancy Bostock keeps the focus on children, and she praised the board's newest member, Janet Cook, for having the "courage" to talk about how much money the district is spending on transportation, even though two students recently died in bus stop accidents. Lerner complimented member Mary Brown for keeping the board's attention on the achievement gap between white and black students.

Lerner even gave an attaboy to the superintendent for delivering a good report at the meeting. This was not high praise, but must have been especially difficult for Lerner, who seems to seek out opportunities to slam Wilcox. For example, at the Feb. 22 School Board meeting, a frustrated Wilcox had withdrawn his e-mails and calendar from the school district Web site after Lerner picked through them to find items she said should not have been posted.

After Lerner finished doling out her dollops of praise, others piled on. Board member Brown thanked Lerner for her work. Chairwoman Bostock praised Lerner for her "kinder, gentler" and more positive approach, and complimented the entire board on "an improved meeting tonight." Member Russell apologized to Wilcox for the way she has spoken to him in the past.

And Wilcox announced that he was putting his e-mails and calendar back on the Web site for the public to see.

Nice . . . is nice. Good manners help prevent hurt feelings and set a better example for the district's students who, after all, are required by School Board policies to interact peacefully and respectfully. It will be interesting to see how long this lasts.

What is really needed, however, is School Board members who comprehend that the job they were elected to do is bigger than any individual member's preferences, politics, needs, moods or picayune point. Every minute board members spend on anything other than how to educate and protect Pinellas' school children is time just thrown away.

[Last modified March 13, 2005, 00:22:15]