Soft-Spoken, Jazz-Loving Chief of Alexandria Schools

Robert W. Peebles, 83, an affable, jazz-playing school administrator who had a serene tenure as Alexandria's school superintendent in the 1980s, died June 30 at Inova Alexandria Hospital. He had pneumonia.

Dr. Peebles was superintendent for five years in Stamford, Conn., before being hired by the Alexandria system in 1980. His seven years as head of Alexandria schools were marked by higher student test scores and relatively calm relations with the School Board and City Council -- in large part because of his soft-spoken personality.

Then-Alexandria Mayor James P. Moran Jr. told The Washington Post that Dr. Peebles "wasn't abrasive. If anything, you'd go in all set to do battle, but he was so smooth, he served as a bridge."

Under Dr. Peebles, the annual school budget rose from about $41 million to more than $60 million, and student enrollment declined from about 11,000 students to about 9,800. He advocated the redistricting of elementary schools, which occurred on his watch, as a means of addressing a gap between blacks and whites on achievement tests.

Dr. Peebles, who played clarinet in a jazz group called Peebles' Pebbles, disliked making speeches in front of teachers on the opening day of school. Instead, he kicked off opening day ceremonies by playing in a jazz combo.

Robert Whitney Peebles was born in Boston and raised in Bourne, Mass., on Cape Cod, where his father was a school superintendent. He served in the Navy Seabees in the Philippines during World War II, during which time he developed tuberculosis. Later health problems included triple-bypass surgery weeks after he was named Alexandria schools chief.

He was a 1952 graduate of Boston University. He received a master's degree in teaching from Harvard University in 1953 and a doctorate in education from New York University in 1967.

Dr. Peebles began his career as a high school teacher in Darien, Conn. He later was executive director of the Education Collaborative for Greater Boston, a nonprofit group that provided education services to suburban Boston school districts, and school superintendent in Marshfield, Mass., and then in Stamford.

In Stamford, a city of great contrasts in wealth and poverty, Dr. Peebles used a "magnet school" concept to attract white students to a predominantly black elementary school.

In Alexandria, Dr. Peebles was a founder of the Washington Area School Study Council, which includes all the region's superintendents. After retiring as superintendent, he became the study council's executive director and also worked for the McKenzie Group, an educational consulting business. His books included "School Desegregation: A Shattered Dream?"

His marriage to Lois Querze Peebles ended in divorce.

Survivors include his wife of 27 years, Elisabeth Burr "Betty" Peebles of Alexandria; three children from his first marriage, James Q. Peebles and Katherine N. Gordon, both of Stamford, and Robert S. Peebles of Montclair, N.J.; a stepson, Scott Burr of the Alexandria area of Fairfax County; and four grandchildren. A stepson, Jon Burr, died in 1993.