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Wilcox's plan is big on safety

The county’s school chief wants “a district within a district” for struggling schools.

By THOMAS C. TOBIN
Published January 23, 2007

Pinellas school superintendent Clayton Wilcox announced a plan Tuesday that focuses more attention on campus safety, poorly performing schools and other pressing problems facing the district.

The plan calls for a major reshuffling of the district’s top managers. The most notable changes: two new associate superintendents — one in charge of “safety and security’’ on all campuses and another who would head a “district within a district” of about 20 struggling schools.

Campus safety, Wilcox said, will be an issue for many parents when the choice plan’s racial controls expire this year and families will be asked to help maintain diversity by considering schools outside their neighborhoods. Safety also has been an issue recently at Gibbs High School in St. Petersburg, where reports of vandalism, fighting and defiant behavior by some students prompted the district to intervene with help in December.

Among Wilcox’s long-term ideas: the ability for parents to get a live, online peek at school common areas from their home or work computers.

The new “district within a district” would be made up of schools in need of “corrective action’’ under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. The new associate superintendent would look for ways to better target the district’s resources at those schools, Wilcox said.

He announced the plan during a meeting with the St. Petersburg Times editorial board that also touched on other topics. He said the cost to add positions and increase pay for some administrators would total nearly $550,000. The money would come from a line item already budgeted for superintendent initiatives.

The School Board will consider the plan next month.

Asked about the district’s legal battles with two parties representing the district’s black students, Wilcox said they had distracted him from helping those students and he is eager for a settlement. “I don’t care how it ends,’’ he said. “It’s just got to end and I’m looking real hard for the most expedient pathway to do that. And so I’ve said to the attorneys, 'Find me a way.’ ’’

He added, however, that he would never agree to one party’s demand that the district admit it has discriminated against black children. “The very premise is a nonstarter,’’ he said.

He was referring to a case that alleges the district has failed to provide a quality education to black students, as mandated by the Florida Constitution. Guy Burns, the Tampa attorney for the plaintiffs, could not be reached for comment.

Also Tuesday, Wilcox accepted blame for not stepping in before December to help Gibbs High. He said reports from Gibbs teachers reached him near the start of the semester.

“From my perspective it was kind of benign neglect,’’ he said. “We weren’t paying attention from the district office … I  think all of us thought, 'Well shame on us.’ ’’

He disclosed that the district took similar action recently at Boca Ciega High, where a lack of resolve among the staff to tighten down on student discipline led to problems.

Wilcox said the issue was a “chemistry problem” among staff that the district addressed by moving two assistant principals to other jobs.

“Gibbs wasn’t our first foray into assisting high schools,’’ he said. “It was our most public.’’

He said the district might use the model established at Gibbs on other schools with student behavior problems.

That model includes an insistence that teachers, administrators and other school staffers be more visible on campus and uniformly enforce school rules.

Wilcox said he and other district administrators have continued to visit Gibbs. He said one teacher reported in recent days that the campus was starting to “slip back” to its old ways. “Well, that can’t happen,” Wilcox told the editorial board. District administrators “are going to keep going back until we create habits. … We’re committed for the long haul.’’

Wilcox detailed his staffing changes in an eight-page narrative placed on the district’s Web site Tuesday.

Barbara Hires, now one of two area superintendents in charge of elementary schools, will head the new “district within a district” for struggling schools. Mike Bessette, an area superintendent for middle and high schools, will be the new associate superintendent in charge of safety and security.

Responsibility for safety and security has traditionally been shared across many departments, which sometimes created a fractured response, Wilcox said. Bessette now will have “the juice” to step across department lines and solve problems, he said.

Deputy superintendent Julie Janssen will be the district’s new chief academic officer “in charge of teaching and learning in the district.”

The district’s top echelon also will have a new “Director for Advanced Studies and Academic Excellence.’’ That administrator will focus “solely on identifying underrepresented and talented students’’ and increasing the district’s capacity to offer advanced courses.

Wilcox said the position is a response to school accountability efforts that focus on lower performing students. “You don’t close the achievement gap by holding the top down,’’ he said.

Times Staff Writer Donna Winchester contributed to this report.

[Last modified January 23, 2007, 22:46:16]