New School Board Hopes to Rebuild System's Reputation

Officials Supplant State-Appointed Panel

After a four-year hiatus, a democratically elected school board has returned to Prince George's County.

The state-appointed board that has run the sprawling school system since spring 2002 made a quiet exit from office Thursday, its disappearance barely noticed amid national elections. The only incumbent left behind was Leslie Hall, the board's student member and a senior at Forestville Military Academy. The nine new members, political novices who hope to rebuild the system's reputation, watched the board's final meeting from the audience for the last time.

Then they went to dinner to talk about the future.

The five district and four at-large members, working with recently appointed schools chief John E. Deasy, are responsible for 135,000 students, 17,000 teachers and staff members and a budget of more than $1.5 billion. But those are just the numbers. The symbolic challenge runs much deeper: Can the nation's most affluent majority-black county give its children an equally rich education? Or will it simply buttress statistics showing that black students often do not perform as well in school as white ones?

"If we can't close the achievement gap here, then where can it be closed?" asked Heather Iliff, one of the new members, in the days before the election.

But the board member's first mission is to gain the trust of local lawmakers and the public, who watched the last elected board collapse. In 2001 and 2002, the previous board's members squabbled constantly with schools chief Iris T. Metts, bickering over matters as trivial as where people would sit as student achievement plummeted and the system accumulated millions of dollars in debt. In 2001, then-County Executive Wayne K. Curry (D) described the board as a "regionwide embarrassment," "totally dysfunctional," "pathetic" and "paralyzed."

A year later, after the board tried to fire Metts, exasperated state legislators threw its members out of office. Members of the appointed board that succeeded them got along reasonably well, restored financial stability and presided over a steady improvement in test scores. They also hired schools chief Andre J. Hornsby, who resigned last year after being accused of ethical violations.

The newly elected board members say they hope to accelerate their predecessors' progress. The state lawmakers who were responsible for ousting the previous elected board -- and for giving a helping hand to the candidates during their campaigns -- believe the new board has good chemistry.

"A lot of us were uncomfortable with doing away with the old board," state Sen. Paul G. Pinsky (D-Prince George's) said. "We didn't want candidates who would take us back to those dark days, where we had a lot of embarrassing things. They're even-keeled, reasoned people. I'm pretty pleased."

They're also unknown to most of the county. Apart from their interest in education, the biggest thing all nine board members have in common is that all were endorsed by the Democratic Party, whose sample ballots listing their names gave them a boost among a broad field of candidates in a low-budget campaign.

But the new board members said they have gotten to know one another well over the past five months of campaigning. They've appeared at more than 20 community forums on the campaign trail. And in contrast to the days of Metts, they unanimously support Deasy, a newcomer to Prince George's who ran the much smaller Santa Monica-Malibu school district in California.

Rosalind A. Johnson, the newly elected representative of District 1, said she and her fellow board members will complement one another "like a perfect puzzle."

It isn't clear who will take the reins of leadership when the board is formally sworn in Dec. 4. Pinsky said Owen Johnson Jr., 61, the District 5 representative and a retired county athletic director who has more than 30 years of experience with the system, is considered a front-runner for the chairman's position. Other observers have mentioned at-large member Ron Watson, 40, an entrepreneur and former soldier who hopes to see the board run as a business, as a possible candidate, or Rosalind Johnson, 62, whose decades of experience as a teacher are frequently mentioned.

Donna Hathaway Beck, 50, an at-large member and outspoken parents activist who said she once went nine years without missing a school board meeting, has been mentioned for vice chairman.

The other members bring their own ambitions. Jeana Jacobs, 39, another at-large member and a lawyer, said she hopes to avoid meeting youngsters she encounters in her job as a division chief in the state department of corrections. Steven E. Morris, 55, a retired educator who barely won his race in District 4, wants to crack down on truancy and improve accountability in the school system.

At 25 , Nate Thomas, a graduate of Suitland High School, is the youngest board member. He served as president of the state student council. Iliff, 36, the District 2 representative, was a student member of the Anne Arundel County school board in high school who then lived for nearly a decade in Budapest, helping eastern European and Balkan educational systems adjust to the post-Communist era.

The board members have slightly differing agendas, but they are unanimous on one thing: If they are to succeed, they will need the help of parents. Pat Fletcher, 56, the representative of District 3 and a former union leader, said one of the board's missions will be to make the school system more welcoming to parents.

"Even though I was involved in the PTA and stuff, I saw the Board of Education and the school system as this unreachable castle," Fletcher said. "Maybe it was just my perception, but that was it. We need to change the perception. We're people-friendly. We're not sitting up in this castle. We're just like you."