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Superintendent flounders in his job
By BARBARA BEHRENDT
© St. Petersburg Times, INVERNESS -- Before a sea of faces, many of them black, Superintendent David Hickey was bombarded at last week's School Board meeting with accusations of racism after picking a white man over a black woman to become the district's personnel director. Hickey wouldn't talk about the specifics of his choice, but he did make a telling statement to the testy crowd. "There's no easy decision to be made by the superintendent," he said. "There hasn't been one of those in six months" since he took office. Hickey's short time in the hot seat has indeed been troublesome. During Tuesday's 14-hour board meeting, Hickey faced a host of new problems. Besides the racism controversy, a group of students turned up to complain that their beloved performance band, Breez, was being scaled back. Teachers questioned the district's handling of hiring and firing decisions, and some board members openly fought him on other personnel matters. Hickey finds himself in familiar territory. During last fall's divisive campaign for superintendent, Hickey pounded incumbent Pete Kelly over a laundry list of perceived flaws, including lack of communication skills and failure to maintain employee morale. Now Hickey has the job -- and many of the same complaints. He has been accused of failing to communicate with the board and staff. He has angered workers by canceling union contract talks while recommending new administrator slots and upgrading other quasi-administration jobs. "Morale is bad when it comes to salaries," said Terry Flaherty, president of the Citrus County Education Association, which represents the district's teachers. "You hear them talking about the need to recruit more people, and they hire new people, but they're doing nothing for the employees they've got. . . . This is a conscious effort at putting us last." Hickey acknowledges that there have been some rocky moments, but the longtime veteran Citrus County educator said last week that he is laying the foundation for improvements. "Am I falling into the same trap? I don't think so," he said. Hickey admitted, though, that he is still finding his way. For example, he said he has not communicated well with the School Board. "Communication is the No. 1 concern of any business or any agency, and I definitely do fall into that trap," he said. "We just have to work on it. "The board has to do those things with me as well," he added. "But it is my responsibility." While serving as an assistant superintendent under Kelly, Hickey complained that he was left out of the decision-making process. During the campaign, he said administrators were often left in the dark. Sometimes, he said, board members learned about important initiatives from newspaper articles rather than from Kelly. Hickey vowed that wouldn't happen under his watch. In the last six months, Hickey has visited each school, in most cases numerous times. He has talked with principals to sort out his own priority list. But communication with the School Board remains a challenge. Board members were frustrated about not getting detailed budget presentations from the department heads before they reviewed the district's overall spending plan for 2001-02. They had to ask Hickey several times before the reviews were finally conducted last week. Two months ago, when three district employees ended up in trouble with the law for different reasons, several of the board members didn't learn about the arrests until just minutes after a reporter questioned Hickey about them. One of the arrests had happened several weeks earlier. Another board member learned about the arrests the following morning when she read the Citrus Times. Then last week, Hickey's recommendations of new hires and upgraded jobs ran into a buzz-saw from the board. Board member Sandra "Sam" Himmel voted against upgrading teachers on special assignment and pay increases of as much as $10,000. Himmel and Chairwoman Patience Nave questioned a new administrative job and the pay level and voted against it. Later, Nave asked why some necessary information was not included on the forms submitted to the board as a part of the recommendation process. And as the board considered spending $500,000 in state technology money, board member Pat Deutschman told Hickey that approving the positions was like pulling teeth. Adding to the frustration is that teacher and other employee contract talks are on hold because the budget is in limbo. To Deutschman, it was like having "faith in a vacuum." Flaherty, the new president of the teachers union, waited outside as the board met in private on Tuesday to discuss union bargaining strategies. He knew they were talking about money, and he was frustrated that the next school year may start before the union and administration discuss raises. Then, just a few hours later, the board approved spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on new teachers, upgraded positions and new administrator positions. It was the perfect prescription for employee unrest, something Hickey had strongly criticized Kelly for during the election. He accused Kelly of relating poorly to employees, dragging out contract talks, creating morale problems and killing the trust between the administration and the school workers. Flaherty said the union wants to work with Hickey, but pushing new positions and upgrades at a time like this sends a strong signal to employees. "I'm tired of the us versus them," he said. Flaherty had hoped to have regular meetings with Hickey, something Kelly had started at the end of his term. Hickey has met with the union just once. Many of the challenges of running a school district arise no matter who is in charge. Take the hiring of personnel. Hickey criticized Kelly for hiring too many people because he assumed there would be more students entering the district than the number who actually showed up. That mistake was costly for the district because the student number drives the state funding. The lower-than-expected enrollment meant a shortage of state funds. Included in the batch of positions Hickey asked the board to approve last week were a number of new teaching slots. Hickey said he based the call for new jobs on projections that student populations could grow this year. Projections, he said, were all the district has to work with until students actually show up in August. But that was the same explanation given by Kelly several years ago, an explanation that Hickey rejected during the campaign. And, like Kelly, Hickey stands to be criticized if fewer students show up than are projected. Hickey said the district knows there will be more students at Citrus High in August because attendance boundaries have been changed. Most of those students will be coming from Lecanto High School, which Hickey said was understaffed last year. During the campaign, Hickey also criticized Kelly over the district's strategic plan, saying he spent too much money on a consultant to help develop the plan. Now that he is the superintendent, Hickey has asked the board to pay consultant Susan Leddick an additional $6,700 more next year. Is this a contradiction? No, he said. "This is the year we're completing the strategic plan, laying the foundations for and starting the new plan," Hickey said. "Our committee felt that we needed the input of our consultants." Hickey acknowledged in an interview last week that he still is learning his job. The blowup with the board over the personnel questions, for example, was a lesson. "A lot of the paperwork at the board meeting last time was not properly filled out. There was not the cost analysis," he said. "That's my fault." Still, he said, the recommendations he made were well thought out. "To build trust and work on morale factors will take time," he said. "I think I have done some of those things and set the groundwork for some more." Hickey said that people were coming to him with issues more than ever before and that he was encouraged by that. "I believe in everything that I've said in the past, but it takes time," Hickey said. "I won't win everybody over, but I'd like to. I like being a winner."
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