Managing ABCs like a CEO

Azalea Elementary School principal Brenda Clark has gained national attention by embracing new teaching methods. Despite strong results, she is not without critics.

By SHELBY OPPEL

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 5, 2000

ST. PETERSBURG -- Brenda Clark has made her pitch to thousands of people, in hundreds of schools and many states. So when Bill Bradley's invitation arrived, the Azalea Elementary School principal simply boarded another plane.

Clark has convinced educators, Rotarians and CEOs: Her way works. Why should a presidential hopeful, a former U.S. senator, be different?

Yet Bradley's interest surprised even Clark. She watched his pen scratch furiously against a notepad, recording every word.

"He took notes like crazy," she said, recalling her 1998 speech to a national round table on education.

"He was just real interested in what we were doing."

He's not the only one.

In Pinellas County, where Clark has been a teacher and principal for almost 30 years, hers is not a famous face. But to hundreds who have visited her school since the mid-'90s, Clark is a star.

In eight years as Azalea's principal, Clark, 52, has seized on a particular brand of school reform with near-religious zeal. She pushes teachers to abandon more traditional methods and pushes out those who don't. She hastens the revolution, as she calls it, with strict discipline. She proudly defends Azalea's student suspension rate, the highest among Pinellas elementary schools.

Her results -- steadily climbing test scores -- are accompanied by an unusually loud buzz. A tough, magnetic presence, she has intimidated some parents -- including one who became so incensed that he hired a private investigator to rally opposition against Clark.

Yet she increasingly is sought out by business people and politicians who see in her the silver bullet for all that ails public schools.

Entire school districts and a growing number of states are adopting the reforms for which Clark has become a national spokesperson. Each year, more Pinellas schools are doing the same.

None, however, shares the high profile of Azalea. And no principal attracts the attention that follows Clark.

Azalea Elementary will be the world-class benchmark for highest student achievement -- vision statement posted throughout the school

No wayward student who has fallen under Clark's ice-blue stare would doubt her former line of work. For 10 years, she was a gym teacher in Pinellas schools.

Before that, she was Brenda Anne Smith, born in Ocilla, Ga., and raised in Macon. Her younger brother still lives in Ocilla, as superintendent of the county's three schools.

After flunking her freshman year at Georgia Southern College -- "I had three quarters of unlimited fun," she said -- Clark made up the credits in the summers. She graduated with her class with a bachelor's degree in physical education. At Florida State University, she earned a master's degree in the same subject.

She taught briefly at a high school in Macon, Ga., and at private Mercer University. In 1973, she was hired to teach P.E. at Maximo Elementary in St. Petersburg. After night classes at the University of South Florida, she moved from the blacktop into the classroom, teaching math, science, social studies and health to second- through fifth-graders.

From there, she became assistant principal at Osceola Middle School, then principal at Gulf Beaches Elementary. She wanted a bigger challenge -- more students, larger staff -- and in March 1992, she won the top spot at Azalea.

In her third semester at Azalea, Clark attended a school district "boot camp" that introduced principals and teachers to a new way to run classrooms. District administrators and union leaders had been turned on to the new methods by local executives of AT&T Paradyne, now Lucent Technologies.

The methods had made American businesses more competitive, including Xerox, Motorola and Honeywell, the executives argued. Could they do the same for public schools?

The ideas, then and now, travel under different names, part of a dense jargon that can numb the uninitiated. Baldridge in Education. Total Quality Management, or TQM for short.

Others refer to Deming's principles, shorthand for the late W. Edwards Deming's philosophy of business management. After World War II, Deming took his ideas to Japan and later was credited for spurring that country's economic rebirth.

Regardless of the label, the message is this: Define goals based on customer demands. Eliminate efforts that do nothing to help achieve them. Analyze results for ways to create a better product.

Translated into schools, the methods do not alter the state-mandated curriculum, a set of skills and subjects each student must learn. Instead, they change the way students learn it.

At Azalea, students are the workers, who must take responsibility for the product -- knowledge. Teachers are the managers who help students do their jobs. Customers include parents, and the schools and colleges to which students will graduate.

The most important customers, however, are employers who demand that today's fidgety first-grader becomes tomorrow's skilled worker. To get there, students mark their progress toward goals. Vision statements and motivational slogans are hung on the walls; bar charts that mark student progress abound.

In such simple concepts, Clark believes, lies the revolution.

"If we really want to make a difference nationally in public education," she said, "this is the way we can make it."

There are no random acts. Data is collected continuously and the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle is used for constant improvement in every process used in the classroom -- classroom posting

Last July, Clark showed up in the Washington Post, praised by David Broder in a nationally syndicated column. In November, she headlined a conference of educators from 29 states, including six that are modeling entire school systems after Azalea Elementary.

The speaking engagements and consulting trips take Clark away from Azalea for several days each month, a schedule some of her teachers privately bemoan. Often she is representing the school or the district and receives payment only for her expenses.

Other times, when working for a private consulting firm run by a retired district employee, she counts the absences against her vacation days. Back on campus, visitors arrive almost weekly.

By her count, Clark has hosted more than 300 tour groups since 1995, from Swedish educators to St. Petersburg Mayor David Fischer, whose grandson is an Azalea fifth-grader. After J.C. Penney produced a documentary about the school, the company filled orders from more than 600 schools and districts.

Only one group is more eager than business people to get behind Clark's results, especially in election years.

Before the state Legislature convened in 1997, first-time Senate President Toni Jennings stopped by Azalea for a photo opportunity. In October, Clark addressed lawmakers from 16 states at a symposium on school issues in St. Petersburg.

Jeb Bush toured Azalea during his 1998 gubernatorial campaign. Before he left, he asked Clark one question.

"Can we clone you?"

The classroom is student-centered, with the students working together rather than having authoritative management. The teacher's role is primarily that of a facilitator -- classroom posting

Clark admits all this "quality" stuff sounds a bit formless, antiseptic even, in conversation. So she sends visitors down a wide hallway, to Marie Boll and her fifth-graders.

Boll, 66, will retire in June after 36 years in elementary schools. Her room is a bright, orderly mosaic of flowcharts and mission statements and graphs of test scores, displayed with a jarring abundance of fluorescent pink, blue and yellow construction paper.

Angie Alsina, a thin 10-year-old with a crinkly smile, stands between two groups of desks, spelling book in hand. She reads aloud a list of words, using each in a sentence. The other students sit in groups of five or six, their desks pushed together to form tables. They write quickly, because Angie reads fast, and because this is a test.

Boll, her blue eyes tracking back and forth across the class, folds her arms and leans silently against a wall. She had scheduled this test for later in the week. But her students voted to take it now and later -- two chances to earn a perfect score.

"In our class, Mrs. Boll is not really the teacher," Angie explains. "We're kind of all the teachers. She's the one who helps us if we have problems, but we really teach each other."

When visitors enter, Boll typically motions to Angie or two other girls, all sandy-blondes who wear matching light-blue polo shirts and navy blue "skorts," short pants that look like skirts from the front. The girls approach with the poise of veteran saleswomen, their blue three-ring notebooks open.

Every Azalea student, except for some kindergarteners, has a notebook called a data folder. Full of bar charts and activity logs that the students maintain, the folders help track their progress toward personal goals they set when school began in August.

"We all know what we're supposed to be doing and what we'll do by the end of the year," Angie told a teacher visiting recently from North Carolina. "When we don't know our (grade) averages, it kind of holds us back from striving to be the best that we can be."

The data folders, the student-led spelling test -- both are ways that "quality" methods shift the responsibility for learning from teachers to students, Clark says. It is different, and better, than the "old way" of teaching, she says.

Then, teachers talked. Students, separated in straight rows of desks, listened. Class dismissed.

"The hardest thing was giving up that control. It was sort of scary," Boll said. "Now I wouldn't do it any other way."

Not all of the students are as convinced as Angie Alsina. One boy thinks Boll lets students run the class so she can check her e-mail. But most seem to enjoy the control.

So do many parents.

"My youngest (child) knows his only job is to do good in school and he needs that written out, exactly what is expected of him," said Sue Banks, whose 6-year-old son, Teddy, is in first-grade.

Banks' eldest daughter graduated last year from Azalea. Another daughter is in fourth-grade.

"In 13 years, Teddy is going to be out in the business world," said Banks, a former PTA president at Azalea who worked 15 years in sales and management at GTE before starting her family. "He needs to know the rules."

Yet it is results, not testimonials, that draw the politicians and CEOs. Clark returns to the fifth-graders, whom she describes as "trained" since kindergarten in "quality processes."

In January, 100 percent of the fifth-graders scored at or above grade level in reading on a districtwide test, Clark said. On the math portion, 74 percent did the same.

The reading scores boosted the students past their more affluent peers at a north Pinellas elementary school, though they continue to trail in math. Clark is constantly making such comparisons, intent on erasing the distinction.

She dismisses the notion of "quality" as a panacea for poor academic achievement among poor children, or any children. But she believes it offers the best chance to narrow the gap.

At Azalea, about 56 percent of the 770 students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which means their families live at or below the federal poverty level. The mobility rate is 40 percent, meaning close to half of the students who enroll in August leave at least once before the school year ends. Some of them return after missing weeks or months. Others are replaced by students who enter during the year.

The structure of "quality" -- the flowcharts and endless analysis of decisions and consequences -- gives students from often chaotic homes the tools to make school their job, their responsibility.

"It teaches (students) how to set a vision, how to put together a purpose for attending school," Clark said. "It teaches them how to write goals that will lead them toward a successful life."

Clark leans hard on students -- some say too hard -- to create those goals and meet them. Society, she says, cannot afford less.

"All of my years of experience have taught me this: Children grow up. I've seen them at the malls and behind the counters at McDonald's."

Without solid reading and math skills, some can't even hold those low-wage jobs. But the solution, she says, isn't sympathy.

"We could stop feeling sorry for them and start educating them," she said.

Clark's words emerge through slightly clenched teeth, the result of a cross-bite she now wears braces to correct. Her blonde hair is beginning to gray.

Behind gold-rimmed glasses, the ice-blue stare returns.

"And they call me a hard-a-- because of that."

While many schools choose to measure student safety by the number of referrals and suspensions, Azalea Elementary School believes that referrals and suspension may be inversely related to perceived safety, and if referring and suspending students is necessary to yield higher levels of perceived safety, then students will be referred and suspended. -- from the school's application for the 2000 Sterling Award, given to "quality" organizations in Florida

The sky above the school is full and white, threatening rain. Three boys, their mouths set in frowns, sit in straight-backed chairs in the front office.

Clark points to one.

"He can just chill his buns out up here until you get time to deal with him," she says to her assistant principal, Mary Winsor.

A fourth boy swings open the door, panting. A tall, chunky fifth-grader, he could pass for a teenager. His hair is mussed and damp. As he rushes through the office into an adjacent hallway, his white shirt collar is askew. The uniform is inside-out, and backward.

"Get out here!" Clark yells.

The boy reappears from around the corner. As he strides past, Clark glowers.

"You slapped a teacher," she says.

"I know," he snaps, and settles in a chair, resting his sneakers on a table.

Clark turns to Winsor.

"We're going to press charges," she says. "Assault. And there will be a suspension. He's not going back into that classroom."

Last school year, Clark suspended more students -- 54 -- than any other Pinellas elementary school principal. About 61 percent of those students were black, more than double the black enrollment of 30 percent.

Many of them, also, are "exceptional education" students, a catch-all term that includes children with learning disabilities or emotional problems.

Both trends are not unique to Azalea. About 18 percent of Pinellas students are black, yet they accounted for 52.2 percent of all students suspended last year.

Critics, however, say Clark's numbers suggest racism and a desire to rid the school of troubled students who could drag down test scores. Marsha Carter, a white woman and secretary of the NAACP/St. Petersburg branch, is among the critics.

"I don't know that she is a racist. All I can say is that the way she metes out discipline would certainly lead someone to think that," Carter said.

Among other claims, her critics say Clark frequently uses the state's Baker Act to involuntarily commit unruly students to psychiatric facilities.

St. Petersburg police records show two Baker Acts of students in the past two school years. Neither that figure, nor the number of police calls to the school, are unusually high compared to other schools, said Lilla Davis-Mays, a police spokeswoman.

One parent, Matthew Sullivan, is so convinced that Clark's methods are harming students that he hired a private investigator to compile similar complaints from seven other parents. In a letter to state education officials, the investigator asked for an inquiry into Clark's administration at Azalea.

Now a public record, the letter does not include names of the other parents. Clark confirmed that state officials are looking into the matter.

Sullivan, who is white, has denounced Clark at School Board meetings and other public forums since 1996. His adopted son, who is black, no longer attends Azalea.

At age 9, the boy was enrolled in a class for emotionally handicapped students, Clark said. When he urinated on a bathroom floor, he was required to clean it up, she said.

Sullivan says his son did not urinate on the floor. Even if he did, Sullivan argues, his punishment was cruel and excessive.

Clark calls the complaints, and the allegations of bias, "blatant lies."

Far from driving out troubled students, she has added 10 special education classes since 1993, she said. Though the district does not require it, she included those students in districtwide reading and math tests last year.

"If my intent was to eliminate those kids because of their test scores, why would I do that?" she asked.

She vehemently defends her discipline policy, which gives students multiple chances to correct their behavior before earning a suspension. She has no plans to change her rules, even though Azalea's high suspension rate essentially guarantees that it will never earn an A under the state's grading plan.

To receive an A, a school must record a suspension rate below the state average. Lawmakers will consider removing that requirement when they convene Tuesday. Last year, Azalea received a C under the grading system, which is primarily based on standardized test results.

Even if lawmakers don't change the system, Clark said, "I'm not going to compromise what I know to be essential for a good learning environment."

As for her critics, it is time to "put or shut up," she said.

"Let's do it," she said. "Get a lawyer and take it to court."

Ultimately, Clark did not suspend the fifth-grade boy who slapped his teacher's arm. But after a year and a half of dealing with the boy's temper and tendency to rip off his clothes when angered, Clark and the boy's teachers decided to move him to a district center that enrolls only students with mental and emotional problems.

The boy, Clark said, is autistic, learning disabled and severely emotionally disturbed.

And smart.

Like a queen bee, he once said to Clark, you emerge to snatch children and drag them back to your office, where you give them what for.

"I'm going to miss him," Clark said about the boy. "He was worth a few laughs. And you have to laugh. There's no other way to deal with it."

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.