City Seeks Schools Chief With Vision
Three Finalists Offer Diverse Choices, Skills

By Theresa Vargas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 27, 2008

Eric Williams was 22, a new teacher in Fairfax County, when he witnessed what some educators never see: the convergence of a lesson plan with real life.

President George H.W. Bush had agreed to speak to his U.S. history and government class at James Madison High School in Vienna.

"That was powerful," recalled Williams, now 42. "Talk about making it come alive for kids. That was a teacher's dream."

Williams and the two other men whom the Alexandria School Board has spent the past few weeks scrutinizing for the superintendent's position followed varied paths into education and now serve in communities that look little alike. One runs a struggling urban school district in New Jersey that has more than twice as many students as Alexandria's. Another leads a Virginia district a quarter the size of Alexandria's, so small that he can go on home visits to meet parents. Williams's district in Florida, where he is an assistant superintendent, is larger than either of the other two.

The challenge for the School Board -- the most difficult any board faces, education experts say -- is deciding on the person best suited to lead and on what that leadership should look like.

A school board needs to base its decision on where its community has been and where it wants to go, said Anne Bryant, executive director of the National School Boards Association. A bridge builder who is good at calming the waters might fit one district perfectly, she said, but not another that is looking for a risk-taker to shake up the status quo.

"No matter what the skill set, that is not the same kind of person," Bryant said. "It is important to look at the culture and climate within the district and within the community to ensure that they match the future superintendent's skills and attributes with that direction."

With the r¿sum¿s weeded down from 65 and interviews with finalists complete, two School Board members and a city resident visited the school districts of the three candidates recently, interviewing key members of each community.

"We want to know about the bad as well as the good," said School Board Vice Chairman Charles H. Wilson, who was among those making the visits. "We want to know how well they work with the community, who likes them and who doesn't."

Each candidate has his own strengths. Wilson said the board is looking for one who has it all: expertise in instruction, the ability to connect to the entire educational community and a vision to ensure the district gets the most for its money, especially in the face of uncertain financial times.

"We have three finalists who can all be good administrators, but we're trying to figure out which one will be a good administrator as well as a great instructional leader with vision," he said.

Candidate Michael Glascoe's mother tells a story of when he was in the first grade in D.C. public schools and would sometimes stop by the teacher's desk, drop a penny on it and say, "Mrs. Simms, that was a good lesson today."

"I don't remember that, but my mother tells me that," Glascoe, 60, said when asked about when he chose education as a career.

For the past three years, Glascoe has run the schools in Paterson, N.J., a struggling district under state control since 1991. He spent most of his career in the D.C. region, working 28 years in Montgomery County public schools before becoming an area superintendent of Fairfax County schools in 1999. He went on to other high-ranking positions in Fairfax schools before leaving in 2005.

Glascoe said he is excited about the possibility of returning to the region.

"This metropolitan area is graced with outstanding school districts, including Alexandria," Glascoe said.

He said Alexandria in particular attracted him because of its "efforts in not just being a good school district but in being a great school district. That's very compelling, very intoxicating, for someone like me."

It also helps that he has developed strong relationships with other area educators, he said.

Fairfax County Schools Superintendent Jack D. Dale said he thinks Glascoe would be a "great fit" for Alexandria.

"Because of his passion for student success, Michael quickly gains community support," Dale said. "He knows the importance of community engagement and is strategic in his application of that knowledge."

Carole Goodman, principal at James Hubert Blake High School in Silver Spring, worked under Glascoe's supervision for about three years. She said that when she heard he was seeking the Alexandria job, "my gut reaction was, good for them."

Goodman recalled the ease with which Glascoe greeted students in the hallways. As a manager, she said, he was present when needed but did not hover.

"He just had a good sense of people, kind of understood what was in your control and what wasn't," she said. "I think he could do great things. I really do."

Glascoe's tenure in New Jersey has been less smooth. He said in January that he would step down at the end of June, following a warning by the state's education commissioner that his contract would not be renewed unless the district improved. The district, the most culturally diverse in the state, has about 28,000 students, the third largest in New Jersey.

In a letter to New Jersey Commissioner of Education Lucille E. Davy, Glascoe wrote: "I was guided to Paterson by my personal mission of placing children first. That same mission prevents me from staying. Without the total support and confidence in my leadership by the Commissioner of Education, what we have accomplished together as a community . . . will be jeopardized. I will not allow that to happen."

Martinsville, Va., where candidate Scott Kizner leads the schools, in some respects seems worlds away from Paterson. The small city near the North Carolina line is known for its speedway, which boasts that it has flown the NASCAR banner longer than any other track on the Nextel Cup circuit.

But in terms of demographics, its schools don't look so different from Alexandria's. The system's fastest-growing population is students who speak English as a second language, Kizner said.

"I think one of [Alexandria's] challenges that I feel very confident doing is working with at-risk populations," said Kizner, 49. "At the same time, I think it's very important that you raise the expectation bar for all children."

He said he thinks that the fact that his school district is smaller than the others is an advantage.

"You're always the superintendent in a small community. You're visible constantly," he said. "When you come from a smaller district, superintendents are intimately involved with every operation of the school district. You learn to do a lot with less. You understand the importance of the community."

Kizner, who grew up in New York City, said he got into education through working with children with mental and physical disabilities. He and his wife opened a group home for children with autism in Berryville, Va. He has worked as an educator since 1981, including in such jobs as assistant superintendent in Clarke County, Va., and superintendent in Westerly, R.I.

He was drawn to the Alexandria opening by the city's desire to maintain a small-town atmosphere. It is a place, he said, where he could see implementing the home-visit program his district started this year. Alexandria has 10,557 students; Martinsville, 2,600.

Williams's district of Collier County, Fla., which includes Naples, serves almost 43,000 students. Although the assistant superintendent has applied for about 10 superintendent positions in the Southeast and is a finalist for a superintendent's post in Lake County, Fla., he said he is "very, very attracted to the Alexandria position."

"I'm enthusiastic about the possibilities," Williams said. "I've been successful in balancing operational matters with promoting student achievement, and I'd appreciate the opportunity to do that as superintendent."

He also has a personal connection to Alexandria schools, having spent third and fourth grades at George Mason Elementary School, while his father, who was in the Air Force, was stationed in the area. Later, Williams would take his first job as a teacher at James Madison High.

After Bush's visit to his class that day, Williams said he was left with educational material for weeks to come and a privileged insight into the president's dining habits. Bush, he said, went straight from the school to the McDonald's drive-through up the road.