Evaluation of Superintendent Melinda Boone 2010

Mary Mullaney

GOAL 1: Develop and ensure effective district governance though positive school committee-superintendent relations.

Dr. Boone brought to the district an ambitious and sincere plan to establish a cohesive leadership team consisting of the School Committee and her administration. Having taken office following a sometimes acrimonious and politically charged search for a new superintendent, her idea to bring a sense of teamwork to a somewhat fractured body had merit. To this end, she and the School Committee met for a “retreat” last July which, I believe, all would agree had merit and went a ways to heal some of the wounds and create a better ambience amongst us.

No easy task and for this she deserves kudos.

She also inherited many outstanding school committee items and made a valiant effort to address them. Perhaps too valiant an effort as not all items necessitate the time and attention expended upon them.

Dr. Boone’s work with Mayor O’Brien, as I see it, is positive and visionary on both of their parts.

Into the future, I believe Dr. Boone is right in suggesting that the School Committee should coalesce around certain strategic goals and have substantive discussion of important issues—such as Advanced Placement— rather than getting bogged down in the more mundane and trivial aspects of the day to day running of the schools which are her domain, not the domain of the School Committee.

Another retreat strikes me as an important tool to try to unite the School Committee into a body which can dialogue with one another and resolve important issues in an open, professional manner, a manner in which all members consult with each other rather than only speaking to a few. I believe this is important to establish good will within our body and with the administration. GOAL 2: Increase organizational effectiveness and efficiency

When a new person comes to town, the way Dr. Boone did, one of the interesting things that happens is that Worcester is seen through a new set of eyes. While not disparaging anything that went before, we are introduced to a new way of looking at ourselves and imagining things being done in a new way.

Everything Melinda Boone has done to restructure her administration, while innovative and a tad scary at first, has proven, in my view, to be well thought out and easily justified by the goals she has set out for the school system. I repeat: this is not to say that she corrected faults of the past; she simply rearranged and tweaked what we were doing to meet the challenges and vision she had for the system.

Case in point is the restructuring of her administrative team. Calling the former deputy superintendent the “Chief Academic Officer” emphasized her concentration on academics and teaching and learning. Consolidating school plant issues into the business department, under the leadership of Brian Allen, has proven to be, in my opinion, a stroke of genius, allowing her to eliminate a major position in school plant and saving the school system enough money to hire a teacher. Other economies achieved in Brian Allen’s world have not only saved the system money but have led to more financial accountability and transparency.

Serious kudos.

While the jury is still out on the Accountability Position, it is important to remember that the superintendent has earned, through her economies, the right to forge ahead with this new position, striving towards her clear- headed goal of meeting state and federal standards. I personally have little use for such federal and state interference, but sadly it is with us and comply we must. We must give her new emphasis on accountability a chance to succeed, even if it is a new concept for Worcester.

An important part of Dr. Boone’s overall plan is staff development. This School Committee would be wise, prudent and honorable to not deny her the position of manager of staff development. By tying her hands in such a way, she will not meet the goals she set and with which we concur. If the committee does not reverse its decision around this position, I suggest the superintendent amend her goals and decrease her expectations of what is achievable, and tell the School Committee so.

While initially wary of her budget approach which seemed slow when I wanted immediate answers, I believe her patient and diligent effort to construct next year’s budget bore the fruit she desired. Had money been in greater supply, she would not have had to make the choices she did. However, the end result is not as draconian as feared. (would that we could say the same about next year!)

Enough cannot be said about the economies achieved in what I previously thought was a bare-bones budget. A new set of eyes saw a new way of organizing to achieve savings I would have thought impossible. Dr. Boone’s only fault, if you will, is her modesty and the lack of publicity she sought in making those savings. The School Committee and the public should not be unmindful of that accomplishment.

Goal 3: Increase student achievement for all students while simultaneously closing the achievement gap

Imagine coming to Worcester with great plans for improving the school system and then to be “sucker-punched” by the Level 4 school phenomenon! Out of the blue, new challenges were thrust upon the superintendent, pushing to the sidelines some of the creative ideas and new initiatives which she wanted to advance.

I believe Dr. Boone handled that situation as well as could possibly be expected. She was the messenger bearing a message imposed upon her by those who seem to know better than she (or we) what is good for the WPS. No matter that said people know nothing about Worcester besides numbers on a page. Ordered to replace two principals, she handled that potential debacle with seriousness, sincerity and leadership. Few were happy, nor was she, with the whole mess. It was a nasty storm but I think she steered the ship successfully, if a bit sadly, through those uncharted, bumpy waters.

I am not a big fan of things like the Worcester Compact. I appreciate the intentions and support (who wouldn’t?) the goals, but I worry about centering all of our priorities around raising test scores. I acknowledge that we are mandated to do so and I hope the country begins revolting against this narrow view of education which will only serve to increase the chasm between urban and suburban/private schools. City kids will get Math and ELA until they overdose; other children will get a nice, well balanced education with all the “extras” (only, they are not extras, are they?) This is not Dr. Boone’s fault however, but rather a statement that we should push back whenever possible against this disastrous race to improve standardized test scores. I am glad my own children will soon be out of that race.

I wish the administration good luck with the compact’s goals even while remaining a sceptic as to the achievability of those goals.

Goal 4: Improve public trust, commitment, and confidence through open, honest communication and responsive corrective action to identified obstacles to improving student achievement and the conditions of teaching and learning

Quite a mouthful!

Dr. Boone has by now been everywhere and met everyone. Her commitment to getting to know the community and hearing everyone’s input is, well, exhausting. But commendable. I hope in the next year she can slow that pace and concentrate on the areas she believes need most of her attention.

The community meetings were well-intentioned but unnecessary. I guess we can say that we had no crystal ball when the idea of having the meetings was conceived. In hindsight, cutting the number of meetings at least in half would have been prudent. Brain-storming about what a great school system would look like, while interesting, is meaningless unless we have the money to achieve a fraction of those items on the wish list. We all know what’s good; we’ve done “good”, “fun”, “stimulating” things in the past but they went the way of the chopping block during lean years. I’m not sure what was achieved by all the brainstorming except to state the obvious—we could do neat things if we had the money.

It was an honorable attempt which I hope is not repeated.

Apart from that, the administration has done yeoman’s work in trying to include the community in the WPS. Goal 5: Establish a supportive, positive and effective district climate and culture singularly focused on the improvement of student achievement, using a continuous improvement model.

This is another example of a new set of eyes being brought to bear on the Worcester Public Schools. This is also hardly an area of expertise for me, a non educator. I believe the superintendent is well-trained in this area and I defer to her judgment around issues beyond my ken. I confess to not totally comprehending everything in this new world of “accountability”, but I will watch closely and work closely with the administration to see what fruits are born of this new initiative.

To conclude, I find Dr. Melinda Boone to be a someone of great personal integrity; intelligent; well trained; hard working; thoughtful; a good listener but not a pushover; tough when she needs to be. The biggest compliment I can pay her is, in the words of John Cardinal Newman, “she knows what she is about”. Unflappable because she is grounded in both faith and reason. We have been well-served.