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Schools

Longtime school chief prepares for his final bow

Earl Lennard is retiring after four decades in Hillsborough schools, but doesn't deny rumors that he may run for political office.

By MELANIE AVE
Published June 27, 2005

TAMPA - One recent afternoon, in his waning days as school superintendent, Earl Lennard jumped up from his office chair to shake the hand of a student who said he really wanted to meet him.

The boy, a 10th-grader at Tampa Bay Technical High School, wished Lennard well on his retirement, which officially begins Friday.

"Oh, I'm going to be around," Lennard said. "And in three years, I'm going to look for you, to see that you have graduated. Right?"

The boy nodded.

In many ways, the moment epitomized the reason Lennard has stayed in education for 41 years - the chance to help kids. He says he will miss that more than anything when he steps down after nine years as chief administrator of Hillsborough County schools.

But this is the right time to leave, he says. He wants to fish and spend time with his three grandsons. He doesn't deny rumors that he might soon announce a run for political office.

"He's grown into being one of the most respected superintendents in the state," said School Board member Carol Kurdell, who voted to hire Lennard as superintendent.

Would she hire him again?

"You betcha," she said. "He did everything he set out to do."

Most observers say Lennard, 63, is leaving the nation's ninth-largest school district in better shape than when he took over.

He has presided over record student growth, the end of three decades of court-ordered desegregation and the early years of the state's high-stakes school accountability movement.

He pushed administrators out of the downtown headquarters and into the neighborhoods where schools are located. He helped create four career centers for struggling high schoolers, directed the opening of 65 new and rebuilt schools and approved the renovation of 170 campuses.

But as he takes a final bow, Hillsborough schools are feeling significant strains.

The district is looking at a $364-million deficit in its construction program, which must absorb 6,500 new students a year. The achievement gap between white and black students has widened in the past year, and the district's performance on state and federal measures is moving in the wrong direction.

Three schools received F grades from the state this year. Sixteen others received D's.

When asked how he would describe his administration's legacy, Lennard - who is known for a conversational style that even friends describe as bland - offered the following:

"That we cared about the students and we cared about student performance and did what we could for teachers while coping with growth."

Lennard likes to wiggle his ears to make kids laugh. He sometimes sings to his secretary, especially on Fridays.

"He's always whistling or singing or clicking his pen," said his secretary JoAnn DelRosal, who is retiring the same day as Lennard. "He's like a little boy, and I mean that in a positive way."

At times Lennard has been criticized for having a hands-off management style that favors insiders.

But during his recent retirement reception at the Florida State Fairgrounds, attended by 600 people and costing more than $10,000, he was painted as a happy-go-lucky country boy who worked his way up to become the county's top educator.

"To me," said Bob Clark, president of Tampa Steel Erecting Co. and a Hillsborough Education Foundation board member, "he's an example of a nice guy finishing first."

The son of a Hillsborough County farmer, Lennard wanted to be a lawyer while attending the University of South Florida. He became a teacher instead, hoping to save money for law school.

But after starting in 1963 as a fifth-grade teacher at Ruskin Elementary School, he forgot about law. "When I started teaching, I found I loved it," he said.

For a time he was an announcer at East Bay High football games and one time got so caught up in the festivities he forgot his bride, Annabel, in the stands. (They made up and have been married 41 years and have two grown children.)

"As a teacher Earl had the greatest rapport with students I ever saw," said his chief of staff Jim Hamilton, who was an intern under Lennard. "If he wanted to, he could have lined them up and marched them into the bay."

Fifteen years after entering the classroom, Lennard moved into the administrative ranks, working mostly in agriculture and vocational programs.

Assistant superintendent Mike Grego said he watched in admiration when Lennard became an assistant superintendent of technical, career and adult education. He said the department was in disarray and Lennard calmly, methodically - and quietly - made improvements.

"He never really took a whole lot of credit himself," Grego said.

Shortly before former superintendent Walter Sickles announced his retirement in 1996, Lennard was promoted to deputy superintendent. Sickles said he liked Lennard's leadership skills.

When Lennard took over, he inherited a district foundering under the weight of tightening budgets, overflowing schools, low teacher morale and public cynicism. A few months earlier, voters had defeated a sales tax for school construction and technology.

"He came at a time when the district needed some stability," said retired educator John Miliziano, who worked as Lennard's administrative assistant.

"One of the first things he said was, "Okay guys and girls, we're going to run this school district and we're going to have fun doing it."'

Miliziano said he ran into Lennard recently and asked if he was still having fun. "He said yes. That's one thing about Earl, he hardly ever got rattled about anything."

* * *

Within a year of becoming superintendent, a community partnership, with help from Lennard, persuaded voters to pass a half-cent sales tax for a new Buccaneers stadium that also generated millions for school construction and renovation.

During Lennard's tenure, two high schools that had been placed on double sessions were able to revert to a normal schedule. The number of portable classrooms was cut in half.

School Board Chairwoman Candy Olson, who initially voted against hiring Lennard because of his cautious approach, said he has made the district more financially secure and placed a greater emphasis on classroom instruction.

"Certainly he has flaws," Olson said. "Sometimes he is too kind. Earl has an ability to be very nice and also the ability to be very firm. I think sometimes people underestimate him and I think it's because of the former."

Some board members have complained that Lennard is not hands-on enough. That criticism rang loudest three years ago when Doug Erwin, a 33-year school employee and former principal of the year, quit after Lennard reassigned him from his job as director of operations and maintenance. Erwin had just made allegations of $100-million in waste and Lennard wanted him to prove it.

In January, a jury said the school district retaliated against Erwin under the state's whistle-blower law and violated his First Amendment free speech rights. The School Board has asked a federal judge to overturn the verdict.

Though Lennard denied Erwin's allegations, administrators soon beefed up efforts to maintain schools and hold contractors responsible for shoddy work, including recent cases at Westchase and Symmes elementary schools.

Board member Jennifer Faliero said she is disappointed that Lennard has not done more to fix problems with the choice student assignment plan that replaced court-ordered busing a year ago.

The choice plan is designed to encourage voluntary desegregation. It hasn't worked so far because too few students are choosing to leave schools in their neighborhoods.

The result: Black students made up more than half the enrollment last year at 46 Hillsborough schools. At 23 schools, Hispanics were in the majority.

Hillsborough chief of facilities MaryEllen Elia, who will replace Lennard, said he has left her with a good school system that she hopes to make into a great one. His advice to her: "Listen to people and do what you think is right deep down."

Lennard says he made up his mind to retire while hiking on the Appalachian Trail last summer. He is leaving one year before his contract expires.

He has been fuzzy about his retirement plans, but colleagues say he will make a run for Republican Sen. Tom Lee's seat.

As superintendent, Lennard regularly showed his political skills by quieting any displeasure with legislative policies. When tough school accountability measures embarrassed Hillsborough schools, or when the Legislature passed unfunded mandates, Lennard, a Democrat, chose his words carefully.

"Every time the state made a new requirement, he said, "Let's do it,"' said former governor Bob Martinez, who spoke at Lennard's retirement reception. "That was kind of refreshing from my point of view. He just kind of rolled with it, took the good with the bad."

Hamilton, the No. 2 schools administrator, said Lennard taught him that caring about children is at the core of everything.

On Hamilton's last day as an intern years ago, Lennard asked him to go for a ride. "I want you to see where the kids come from," Lennard told him.

The two men drove to a tiny house in Wimauma with no air conditioning and windows with no screens. A baby crib sat just inside the front window.

"You see that house there," Hamilton recalled Lennard saying. "The day you aren't working for the kid in that crib, get out of the business."

"I've never forgotten that," Hamilton said.

On Thursday, in his final address as superintendent, Lennard won't be spending his time with administrators, teachers or parents. He'll be talking to students graduating from the summer school program at Brandon High School - the same school where, years ago, Lennard picked up his diploma.

--Melanie Ave can be reached at 813 226-3400 or melanie@sptimes.com

[Last modified June 27, 2005, 04:53:07]