Inside a conference room at the East Baton Rouge Parish School System’s Professional Development Center on May 17, several dozen school board members, community leaders and consultants hold the first meeting of the EBR-Committee for Educational Excellence. The community-led planning process is intended to chart the course for the system’s future.
Superintendent John Dilworth speaks at the beginning of the meeting. But as attendees are working in small groups, Dilworth sits in a hallway by the snack table, holding a cup of coffee. A reporter seizes the opportunity to chat with the press-shy superintendent.
Half of the conversation focuses on a proposed breakaway school district that some parents in southeast Baton Rouge are discussing, and the rest of it is about the meeting that is taking place in the other room. Dilworth says it’s important the board and the community take ownership of the plan.
“I see it backfire too many times,” when a superintendent becomes the face of a plan, he says. “Then a new superintendent comes in three years later, and they do a new strategic plan. Then you have employees out there saying, ‘This is the same old dance, just a different verse, and every time we get somebody new, something happens.’ When the board has ownership, like this board, for another three-and-a-half years or more, then you have a chance to have something to sustain.”
With all of this talk about superintendents coming and going, Dilworth is asked if he’s planning to retire soon. Dilworth says he isn’t; he’s simply acknowledging reality.
“I serve at the pleasure of the board,” he says.
Two days later, Dilworth quietly informs some school board members that he doesn’t plan to ask for an extension of his contract, which expires at the end of June 2012. He made his decision official in an e-mail to the full board the next morning.
“This is not a goodbye speech,” he says at a hastily arranged news conference that afternoon.
Dilworth says he intends to fulfill his contract. Some board members and education watchers, however, hope the final goodbye will come much sooner than next summer.
This isn’t the first time Dilworth has said he was leaving. In April 2010, only nine months into the job, he submitted a letter of resignation without a public explanation as to why. But some people who had spoken privately to Dilworth said he was frustrated with “micromanagement” by the board.
At the time, Rep. Steve Carter, a Baton Rouge Republican, was pushing legislation intended to bar school boards from becoming involved in the day-to-day affairs of running a system. The Louisiana Association of Business & Industry, the state’s powerful business lobby, and the Council for a Better Louisiana, a nonpartisan advocacy group, supported Carter’s bill. Dilworth’s resignation gave them a ready example to bolster their cause.
“The suddenness of the superintendent’s resignation does cause us to ask if school board micromanagement has played a role in his decision,” Baton Rouge Area Chamber CEO Adam Knapp said. “If that is the case, the business community hopes that there is an opportunity to eliminate such interference in the future.”
Then whispers began over a construction contract with consulting firm Volkert and Associates. Dilworth supported Volkert’s selection, also backed by a committee recommendation, over another contractor with a longstanding relationship with the system. Volkert had been fired by the Mobile, Ala., school system in 2003, and Dilworth had a prior professional relationship with Volkert executive Clay Slagle.
Former board member Derrick Spell told Business Report last year that Dilworth had informed him prior to the controversial recommendation that he was aware of Slagle’s intention to work for Volkert, but withheld the information before the vote because attorney Domoine Rutledge told him there was no conflict. Days later, Dilworth called Spell to tell him that he never actually conferred with counsel.
“[Dilworth] said, ‘Domoine didn’t remember the conversation, so I misspoke and it never happened,'” Spell said.
No wrongdoing on the part of Dilworth or any board member was ever proven. BRAC called for a third-party investigation, but didn’t step up when the board invited the chamber to pay for an inquiry. Dilworth rescinded his resignation three weeks after its submission, but the Volkert controversy and his change of heart soured many former supporters on Dilworth’s leadership.
“The faith-based, black community was the one that rallied around John,” says Jerry Arbour, a school board member who was board president at the time. “Their outpouring of support was what changed John’s mind about staying. But there was a good number of people that said, ‘If he wants to go, let him go.'”
Since Dilworth’s hiring in July 2009, redistricting and an election have reshuffled the school board. Six of the 11 members are new.
“If I was them, I would want to choose my leader,” Dilworth says. “I just wanted to give the board enough notice so that they could do a proper search.”
The previous board needed a late tiebreaker to hire Dilworth with a 7-5 vote, and the current board often has been sharply divided. In his May 20 news conference, Dilworth took responsibility for failing to build consensus on the board.
According to some board members, there is tension between members who had the backing of BRAC during the election and those who didn’t. There are few opportunities for members to discuss issues outside of their official meetings or to become better acquainted without being accused of circumventing the state’s open meetings law. Because Dilworth is the one person in a position to know the various members’ concerns, says one board member, who asked not to be identified, assigning partial blame to him for not being able to bring people together is fair.
When that same member is asked what Dilworth’s legacy might be, the long silence speaks volumes. Some education activists, who were never impressed with his hiring, are thrilled that he’s leaving. But supporters, including some board members, can list several examples of the superintendent’s open-minded approach.
Dilworth often cites the Career Academy, which is scheduled to open in the fall, as potentially filling an important need for both the system and area businesses. Students will have the opportunity to graduate with a professional certification and a traditional diploma. Charters for the downtown Mentorship Academy schools and Inspire Charter Academy were approved with Dilworth’s support. And a joint agreement with city-parish government and the district attorney’s office creates a one-stop shop to deal with truancy and child welfare issues.
None of these changes should be attributed solely to Dilworth—the Louisiana Resource Center for Educators and the Baton Rouge Area Foundation performed the heavy lifting for the Career Academy, for example—but they occurred on his watch. Some members say Dilworth is a “stand-up guy,” willing to take the heat from the public on tough issues such as school closures and budget cuts.
Standardized test scores were released on May 24. Most schools showed improvement, and fourth-graders in particular improved across all subjects. Still, a one-point increase in students who scored “basic” or above, to 57%, isn’t going to inspire anyone dancing in the streets.
Dilworth admits his thoughts about leaving next year have affected his work. He has put off reorganizing the central office, reasoning that the next superintendent might have different ideas, and he has not extended some contracts. Though he has said he intends to fulfill his contract, he is rumored to be considering a move back to his home state of Arkansas.
If Dilworth decides to leave early, Rutledge says, he can do so without being penalized. He says the board and superintendent could reach agreement on an early departure that would “no doubt” involve the board’s paying Dilworth’s remaining salary of nearly $230,000.
As it now stands, it’s the superintendent’s prerogative to serve out the remainder of his contract, absent the board terminating him for cause, Rutledge says, which would require a two-thirds vote, written charges and a fair hearing. Dilworth already was retired upon returning to work in the East Baton Rouge Parish School System; leaving early would have no effect on his retirement benefits, according to a spokeswoman for the Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana.
“I don’t see how we can have a lame-duck superintendent for 13 months,” a board members says.
A buyout could be tricky politically, however; with $33 million in budget cuts potentially being finalized in June, the board might be squeamish about essentially paying two superintendents at once.
By the time the board hired a search firm, vetted and interviewed candidates, and made a selection, it took 18 months to hire Dilworth, Arbour says, though it’s always possible things could happen faster this time.
“Let’s say we have somebody we want to hire in six months, which is possible, I guess,” he says. “Then I think it would be appropriate to discuss a buyout. … I believe we could raise some money in the private sector to buy out John.”
Arbour says he wants someone who has been an educator; Dilworth’s predecessor, Charlotte Placide, was not. The community likely will expect a national search, and board members have said they want someone willing to “think outside the box” and “upset the apple cart.”
The current board is not the first group to come in with promises of big change and major reform. While they’ve been at work for several months, many people who care about public education will see the selection of the next superintendent as its first true test.
