 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
School official fights back
By MELANIE AVE TAMPA -- For years, teacher Connie Dowling asked principal after principal to do something about the behavior of another teacher. And for years, nothing was done. "She was very mean, very volatile," said Dowling, who retired in June. "Kids would come in and complain." So when Doug Erwin became the principal of Robinson High School in 1986, she again complained. To her surprise, Erwin began tracking problems with the teacher. "He tucked the documents into a folder and when the teacher messed up too many times, he had her transferred," Dowling said. Dowling was relieved and struck by Erwin's persistence to right a wrong. "He's a person who says, "I will look into this,' and he does," she said. "He does whatever he can to rectify a situation." The portrait painted by Dowling and others of Erwin, the school district's director of operations, is that of a driven, honest man known for rooting out and solving problems. The 33-year veteran has been sent into schools with drug, attendance and performance problems and told to clean them up. But revelations of misconduct in the departments Erwin now supervises have caused school administrators to accuse him of failing to solve some serious problems. Most recently, an internal investigation suggested that $560,000 in district funds were misappropriated by James McClelland, a grounds department supervisor under Erwin. The findings are under state and federal investigation for possible criminal wrongdoing. Erwin's supporters think it's ridiculous to blame him. "If anyone would fight the good fight, it would be Doug Erwin," said Robinson High teacher Bobbi Brogan. "He has an incredible sense of fair play and right and wrong. It guides him in everything he does, and consequences be damned." Erwin's toughness can be traced to his hard-scrabble life. Now 56, he grew up in a log cabin outside Hurricane, W.Va., one of 10 siblings. At age 7, he went to work on a farm for $1 an hour. He didn't wear shoes to school until his high school years. The family had no electricity, phones or running water until Erwin left for college in 1964, buying one-way bus fare with a friend headed to the University of Tampa. Erwin managed to get a football scholarship at UT and graduate with a degree in physical education. In 1968, he was hired as a coach and teacher at East Bay High School. He worked his way up to dean and assistant principal before being appointed principal at a series of high schools, including Robinson, Plant City, Hillsborough and Armwood. Armwood teacher Don Hill said Erwin was a straightforward boss who made it a point to reward good students. "He put the kids above everything," Armwood teacher Marion Smith said. "But he never put up with them goofing off. This man was always out in the hallways seeing what was going on. There wasn't much that got by Doug Erwin." In 1997, superintendent Earl Lennard promoted Erwin to director of operations. He is paid $98,000 to oversee about 350 employees and an $18-million budget. After the recent internal investigation uncovered the misappropriations, administrators asked Erwin to take responsibility and write a detailed plan to address the concerns that were uncovered. But doing that, Erwin said, might suggest that he is to blame, a notion he rejects. "What happened wasn't my fault," he said. Instead of accepting blame, Erwin has claimed protection under the state Whistleblower's Act, which prohibits retaliation against workers who report wrongdoing. Erwin said he was the first person to tell top administrators about problems in the district's grounds and maintenance departments. In 1997, he said, he asked for an investigation. He said he repeated his request several times but was ignored by administrators who told him the problems could turn into an embarrassment for the district. He said it was last fall, after meeting with former board chairwoman Carolyn Bricklemyer, that Lennard hired a private investigator to look into the allegations. The first investigation led to the resignations of two maintenance officials who have been accused of buying personal items with district funds. A subsequent investigation of the grounds department was kept secret until last week, when an internal audit was obtained by the St. Petersburg Times. It shows that the district was billed twice for the same jobs, awarded contracts without seeking competitive bids and steered work to the relative of a grounds department supervisor. School Board members dismiss Erwin's claim that he is being made a scapegoat. "I don't think this is about Doug Erwin," said board member Candy Olson. "This is about a department that isn't running the way it should be running." Board member Jack Lamb said that until the investigation is complete, he's unsure whom to blame. But he does wonder whether Erwin failed to correct problems. "He's been given some direction to follow through on," he said. "He hasn't necessarily done that." Bricklemyer said the focus should not be on Erwin, but on resolving the problems. "This investigation never intended to make him a scapegoat or a target," she said. "I don't know who put that out there from the start." Erwin has received glowing evaluations throughout his career, with supervisors calling himcreative, dedicated and effective. Former schools superintendent Walter Sickles, who supervised Erwin when Erwin was principal at Plant City and Hillsborough high schools, called him honest and courageous. "He ran a good school," he said. "He was an impressive person and an impressive principal. The thing I remember is the kids thought a great deal of him." Sickles said Erwin has the ability to solve the problems discovered in his departments. "But if he's saying someone prevented him from doing something, that's another story I'm not familiar with," he said. Erwin, who plans to retire in two years, said the source of his strength is his wife and high school sweetheart, Patricia, and his three children. Two of them were born with rare disorders that inhibited their growth and took their lives as teenagers. They remain his inspiration, he said, because they accomplished so much in their short lives. As for the school district, Erwin said his goal is for the problems to be corrected and the wrongdoing to stop for the good of public school children in Hillsborough County. "I still see things that shouldn't be going on," he said, "and I don't want to leave a job unfinished." -- Melanie Ave can be reached at 226-3400 or melanie@sptimes.com.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
|
