Pr. William Schools Lose Pillar

But Gauch soon wanted a bird's-eye perspective of the school system and became a professional staff development coordinator in the central office. She immersed herself in research on what makes effective, quality schools and helped launch Prince William's signature site-based management program, enabling individual schools to operate, for the most part, independent of the central office.

She loved that job, she said, because she was always roaming schools and seeing teachers in action. "I still go back to those years, and they help me to make my decisions now," she said.

In 1991, Gauch went to Saunders Middle School in Manassas and became an assistant principal and eventually principal.

The associate superintendent position overseeing curriculum and accountability opened, so she decided to apply. It wasn't an easy choice. "I wasn't going to apply for it, because I really liked what I did," she said. "I've never been desperate; I've never made a move because I really needed to do something. Most everything I've done, it was intriguing, and it was a challenge."

When she started the job, Gauch had to guide the school system into the state's Standards of Learning curriculum, making sure teachers taught enough material on the SOL exams for schools to get accredited. It was a massive cultural shift for teachers, Gauch said.

"Before the SOLs, teachers walked in, closed the door, and they were the master. If they loved teaching literature, they might spend a lot of time on that, and then get back to grammar" at the last minute, Gauch said. "But when the standards came, we had to ensure that every piece of the curriculum was being taught. Teachers hadn't been tasked with that and monitored that closely."

The first year, Gauch said, hardly any schools were accredited by the state based on the division's exam performance. "It wasn't because the teachers weren't any good. It was that they weren't teaching what they were supposed to be teaching," she said.

Now, Gauch said, she is leaving on a high note. For the first time, all of the school system's elementary schools where a large percentage of students receive free or reduced-price lunches passed their state exams this year and reached federal No Child Left Behind benchmarks, she said. "I am thrilled that they did that. That's based on hard work. That's where the achievement gap has been reduced."

Gauch said the school system still has formidable problems: SAT scores continue to be among the lowest in the region. An influx of English learners from foreign countries means that the system has had to spend more on students who often struggle the most to achieve. And the issues are even harder to tackle given the tax base that is being crippled by high foreclosures and the credit crisis.

Still, the system is learning to adapt. For example, many English for Speakers of Other Languages students are now allowed to submit portfolios of papers and other projects instead of taking the full-length multiple-choice state exams. That strategy has helped boost scores and close achievement gaps -- and, Gauch said, show what students really learn.

She said she hopes that a new president and Congress will support No Child Left Behind but loosen some of the rigid requirements to be a "passing" school and make it easier to avoid being tagged as "failing," which can mislead parents and reduce the credibility of a school.

She's intrigued by merit pay structures such as the one being floated in the D.C. school system but worries that such an initiative might be flawed. She wonders: Do you hand out raises based on student performance? What if one teacher gets only gifted students and another gets only strugglers? Will teachers collaborate as much, or will they become too competitive?

Of all the people she will miss -- School Board members, teachers, parents, students -- she is feeling perhaps most anxious about leaving behind her administrative assistant, Bernie Posey.

"We've decided not to talk about it," Gauch said. "We'll both end up crying."