Staff Is Reeling After Bold Move
All Employees Must Reapply for Jobs

By William Wan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 29, 2007

First came disbelief. Then came anger. Now come the questions as teachers at Annapolis High School begin grappling with their superintendent's order last week that all employees must apply to keep their jobs.

How many teachers will be rehired? Will administrators change the curriculum or class hours?

But the biggest question is this: Will it work?

After failing to meet federal No Child Left Behind standards for four years in a row, the 1,600-student campus faced state-mandated reforms if it failed a fifth year. So, in a surprising move Wednesday, Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell said he planned to jump-start the restructuring of Annapolis High on his terms. Every staff member -- from custodians to the principal -- must reapply to stay in his or her job, an action called "zero-basing."

"But having the staff reapply or dismissing the staff alone isn't enough," said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, an independent nonprofit advocacy group. "You look at struggling schools like this, and the ones who end up succeeding are doing many things at the same time instead of just one thing. They're changing the curriculum, bringing in an outside experts, providing after-school programs."

Jennings and others experts say Maxwell's decision is a bold and unusual one. Faced with similar situations, other systems such as Prince George's County have been criticized for choosing the least drastic option available -- appointing "turnaround specialists" to try to improve schools.

"Zero-basing is dramatic, but it's also a gamble that you can find people to replace them and that those people will be better," said Jennings, whose think tank issued a 20-page report last year on attempted restructuring in Maryland schools.

Annapolis High has at least one advantage, experts say, because it is the only school in a relatively affluent county on the state's list for "corrective action." Other school systems, with many failing schools, must ration their resources and try to save them all.

Maxwell has not elaborated on the plan since announcing it. A spokesman said more changes might be planned for Annapolis High but would not be announced until Maxwell has met with teachers about them.

Only one other school in Anne Arundel County has faced similar circumstances. In 1996, Van Bokkelen Elementary was the first suburban school in Maryland to be placed on a list of schools whose scores were so low that the state was considering taking it over.

Then, as is happening at Annapolis High, school officials decided to have the entire staff reapply for jobs. Most of Van Bokkelen's students lived in bleak public housing complexes nearby. Teaching was difficult, and discipline a constant problem. Of 40 classroom teachers, only three chose to stay.

The school's new principal, Rose Tasker, said she visited other county schools, making a personal plea for others to join her at Van Bokkelen. Her staff the first year was young and included some teachers fresh out of college and others recruited from Prince George's schools.

During her first five years, the school's scores rose steadily. Then they were uneven for several years, faltering and rising again. In 2005, when the scores appeared to have failed federal standards, the school prepared to have its staff members reapply for their jobs all over again. But by appealing on the mislabeling of special education students, the school passed and is now off the state's list.

Administrators at Van Bokkelen and in the county system consider the school an example of restructuring's success. Even leaders of the teachers union, who still call the 1996 restructuring a failure because of its effect on the school's prior teachers, say the school's improvement is a success.

"It took hard work and a lot of time and commitment," said Tasker, who was principal from 1996 to 2005. Finding and hiring the right teachers, she believes, was one of the reasons the restructuring worked.

But hiring new teachers for Annapolis might be difficult, union officials and policy experts say.

"The fundamental question is how to get talented teachers to come to Annapolis High," said Michael J. Petrilli, vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a school reform think tank. With the school's publicized plight and its troubles reaching low-income and minority students, the school might not be able to attract experienced teachers, Petrilli said, and more inexperienced teachers might not have the skill to turn it around.

Although Van Bokkelen had few teachers reapply, some schools see a majority return -- such as Woodlawn Middle, a Baltimore County school that rehired 70 percent of its teachers. The question then becomes whether such a large return can bring about the dramatic change needed, experts say.

Last week at Annapolis High, most teachers said it will be a while before they're ready to decide whether to reapply.

"Some of us are still in the grief stage; others are in anger or denial," said Diana Peckham, an English teacher and chairman of Faculty Advisory Council.

Teachers are waiting for more information from administrators about changes to the curriculum, school hours and allotted planning time, and Maxwell said he hopes a principal will be appointed by next month.

For English teacher Sue Hersman, however, some of the pain has already passed. She had heard rumors all month that something terrible was coming. "At least now the cards are laid on the table, and we just have to start figuring out how to play the deck," she said.