SCHOOLS IN FLUX: City of Tonawanda’s turnover has some parents concerned

By Dave Hill/hilld@gnnewspaper.com
The Tonawanda News

Mon, May 12 2008

— It’s no secret — the Tonawanda City School District has had a rather difficult nine months. The district’s teachers are working without a contract, although a settlement may be near, and several administrators have departed from different buildings.
Last month, it was learned that Superintendent Barbara Peters was searching for and, in fact, has been offered a new position in another district.
Peters is likely leaving Tonawanda — the city she and her husband have called home for nearly 20 years — for a school system she has yet to name because details of the offer she’s received are still being worked out. She has declined to comment on the matter until a decision has been reached.
Her possible resignation comes five months after Susan Frey left her post as high school principal in November to further her career as an assistant superintendent in Depew. And during an emotional school board meeting last June, the resignations of two elementary school principals — Rebecca Todd at Highland and Kathleen Emhof at Riverview — were tendered.
Given all of this, some are wondering what’s going on in Tonawanda schools and whether there’s something telling about the fact that Peters is moving on after only two years on the job. Has the fact that district teachers have worked for two sometimes tumultuous years without a contract strained relations between the school board and top administrators? Is it because declining enrollment has led to talk of closing an elementary school?
Finding answers
The answer to it all, according to School Board President Jim Weber, is that it’s more coincidence than anything.
“Overall, right now it looks like there’s a lot of turmoil, but there really isn’t,” he said.
During that meeting in June, several people said that Todd appeared to be forced out of her post at Highland. Some even cried during the meeting. When asked if Todd was coerced to resign, Peters was quoted in a Tonawanda News story as saying, “You’ll have to ask her that.”
Since Frey’s departure at the high school, Mary Beth Scullion, the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, has been serving as interim principal. The school board interviewed dozens of candidates for the high school principal vacancy and pared the pool down to three finalists, but couldn’t agree outright on one person.
As a result, they’ve hired the Western New York Educational Service Council to conduct the principal search, a contract not to exceed $8,400. The same organization is spearheading Peters’ position; the cap on that contract is $15,000 to conduct the search.
Several parents were especially concerned about the constant principal changeover at Riverview Elementary, and they have statistical reason to be. A study conducted in 2006 by an education research organization found that having a long-tenured superintendent directly impacts student achievement in a school district.
“These positive effects appear to manifest themselves as early as two years into a superintendent’s tenure,” according to researchers J. Timothy Waters and Robert J. Marzano, who conducted a massive school district study.
Their research — which examined 2,714 districts and the achievement scores of 3.4 million students — was featured in an article in “The School Administrator,” the monthly magazine of the American Association of School Administrators.
Moving forward
Parent Christopher Thomas said during the most recent Riverview search process that longevity and consistency were two important things he wanted board members to keep in mind. Thomas said Lee Pierce has proved to be a great new hire at Riverview.
“The question is, for how long?” Thomas wondered.
He believes district parents also need to take a more active role in holding school leaders accountable.
“Our district leaders seem to be reactive, not proactive,” he said.
Joyce Hogenkamp agrees. She served on the school board up until July and is so frustrated with the current state of affairs that she’s contemplating running again this spring. “It almost seems like the seams are unraveling in the district,” she said. “It’s drastically fallen apart in the past year, since June.”
Hogenkamp believes the city’s school system needs to become more businesslike, and that includes some downsizing. She praised the work Peters has done since becoming superintendent in 2006 and said she doesn’t believe that Peters is part of the problem.
“Since Barb has come to Tonawanda as an administrator, curriculum expectations have risen a lot,” Hogenkamp said. “It’s going to be such a loss when she goes. The quality between the four (elementary) schools is phenomenal, and that’s because of Dr. Peters.”
Of course, the fact that the teachers are still working without a contract is another topic of concern. Hogenkamp said that when she was on the board, she never anticipated it would take so long to reach a settlement.
That, says Thomas, is a telling sign. “The teachers’ contracts are still not completed. This piece alone shows that the district is not concerned about employee morale.”
While Hogenkamp suspects that the school board is micromanaging district administrators, Weber, the board president, disagrees. Relations between the board and top school officials are fine, he said.
“There’s no question in my mind — everything we’re doing right now is building a foundation for the future.”
Although many in the district are more than pleased with Peters’ leadership, it appears she may be leaving before anyone gets a chance to fully grasp how well she may have done.
According to the McREL researchers, “The positive correlation between the length of superintendent service and student achievement affirms the value of leadership stability and of a superintendent remaining in a district long enough to see the positive impact of his or her leadership on student learning and achievement.”
Contact reporter David J. Hill
at 693-1000, ext. 115.

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