Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 22, 1990 TAG: 9006220766
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MARGARET CAMLIN NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Long
When he arrived from Florida last July - full of plans for bringing dramatic changes to the rural school system - he had already alienated some people just for having been hired.
First of all, he was an outsider.
Secondly, two local favorites for the job - Phyllis Bishop, assistant superintendent, and Edward Crews, formerly assistant superintendent for administration - had applied but weren't granted interviews.
And to make matters worse, Burns' starting salary was $79,500 - $12,285 more than the salary of his predecessor, Kenneth Dobson, who had retired after 24 years.
Dave Wood, Christian education director at the Virginia Conference of the Pentecostal Holiness Church, remembers predicting trouble for the new superintendent.
"Whoever comes, my prediction is he won't last long because it's tough to follow a long-term leader," Wood told the principal of Dublin Elementary School last year.
A year later, Burns is gone - to Muscogee County, Ga., where he will be superintendent of a 30,000-student system.
Burns had his enemies, to be sure. But if he ever felt defeated, it didn't show. The many heated controversies surrounding his leadership hardly seemed to faze him.
No doubt, his year in Pulaski County was tumultuous for the school system and its 5,700 students.
There have been broad advances: computer-assisted instruction, tougher graduation requirements beginning next year, and a new regional governor's school for math and science to open this fall.
But for every bold step forward, there were changes that antagonized enough people to undermine his ability to win broad support.
To his supporters, James Burns stood for substantial progress in the school system.
To his detractors, he represented change that threatened to tear apart a rural community with firm values and traditions.
"He's shaken the system up," said Odell Sheffey, one of Pulaski County High School's assistant principals. "In most ways that's good. I think we needed to open our eyes."
Joy Colbert, supervisor of secondary education, said Burns' relatively high salary was money well-spent.
"It was better than sending the staff back to graduate school. For the breadth of information [that Burns brought to the county] and for the elevation of our programs to national status, they got a bargain."
Although Bruce Fariss, a member of the Board of Supervisors, thought Burns was good for the county, he said the superintendent sometimes lacked sensitivity.
"He pushed kind of hard and fast at times and rubbed many people the wrong way," Fariss said.
Wood of the Pentecostal Holiness Church was one of those who was disenchanted early on.
"He's obviously a strong leader," Wood said of Burns. "But he committed the cardinal sin in leadership in not finding out more about the people he was going to lead."
"He came in with his own agenda," Wood said.
In his short time in Pulaski County, Burns made headlines and drew attention to the small school system as never before.
This may be his strongest legacy.
"He's helped us become more positive about ourselves," said Diane Dixon, outgoing education association president. "We're bragging about ourselves now."
Harold Sadler, whose wife is a teacher at Pulaski Middle School, predicts more people will pay attention to the school system and participate than ever before.
"In the long run, in looking back on this, the School Board will make a positive thing out of his leaving," Sadler said. "The teachers will come together as a more unified group. Citizens will come out to more School Board meetings."
New programs such as the computer-assisted instruction will not be left hanging, contrary to the worries of some, said Wayne Wooten, chairman of the high school's math department.
"He kind of gave us the ball and now we're carrying it and running with it," Wooten said.
Interim Superintendent Phyllis Bishop has vowed to continue in the directions Burns initiated.
Said Colbert, the secondary education supervisor: "One of his biggest contributions was to inspire people to carry the ball."
"But what we will miss is his vision, his perceptiveness in grasping where development for the future is needed."i
Progress
Among the sweeping changes Burns initiated - and the School Board supported - was computer-assisted instruction for both math and English in the high school.
The technology gives students a chance to learn at their own pace with immediate feedback. School officials believe it will help keep potential dropouts in school and strengthen the learning of other students.
Burns empowered English teachers with authority to revamp their departments and begin guaranteeing that every graduate meet national standards in reading and writing.
He also began to decentralize the management of finances in the school system and he launched a countywide effort to attract people back to school who had never finished high school.
He also kept School Board members well-informed and involved. "They've really been given their authority - and they've done so well," said Diane Dixon of the education association.
The same is true for the central administrative staff, according to several central office staffers.
Burns believed in completely open communication, they said. The central staff was more informed and involved than ever.i
Education reform
Nationwide, education and business leaders talk about the crisis in the public schools, calling for far-reaching reforms.
Burns was beginning to do just that, by bringing in computers to transform the way students are taught, by shifting authority from the central office to teachers and individual schools.
Burns recognized that teachers are the bulwark of school systems, said Marshall Leitch, the Virginia Education Association representative.
"I have found him to be 180 degrees different from many administrators I work with here in the valley," Leitch said. "He's right in tune with us with the idea of giving people the dignity to make key decisions affecting their professional lives."i
Controversies
Not all of Burns' actions drew applause.
Layoffs in the school system this spring damaged morale and intensified opposition to Burns.
After the School Board approved his recommendation to cut 20 teaching positions, 12 teachers were laid off, although three have been rehired.
About 10 were transferred to new departments or schools to avoid further cuts.
Declining enrollment in general - and in vocational classes in particular - made the cuts necessary, school officials said.
The high school expects to have 1,812 students next year, 147 fewer than enrolled at the beginning of this past year.
"One rumor after another was just spread, and it made things bad," said one teacher at the high school. "It kind of got to the point that we didn't want to go in" to work.
So far, five vocational-education teachers have lost their jobs, including the high school's only electronics teacher.
Jim Couch, a communications technology teacher, worries about the future of vocational education in the county. He said the system's intensified focus on academic improvement is hurting vocational programs "because of some elusive concept that we want a better school system."
A school system must serve its community, vocational supporters said, - which in Pulaski County means an agricultural and industrial economy.
There is a strong demand for high school graduates with job-entry skills - something Burns may have underestimated, a teacher said.i
Christmas crisis Pulaski's newspaper, the Southwest Times, spread the word last November that Christ would be removed from Christmas celebrations in the schools.
Earlier, Burns had met with principals to apprise them of recent Supreme Court rulings on church/state issues.
Sheffey, an assistant principal, attended that meeting. "He basically told us in that meeting that the things we'd done in the past would be OK," Sheffey remembers. "He said, `Don't do anything crazy and upset the community.' "
Quite the opposite happened. Rumors began to fly that nativity scenes and Christmas carols were a thing of the past.
Regardless of what was discussed at the meeting, it was poorly timed, according to Supervisor Fariss. "He should have kept his mouth shut until later in the year, rather than at Christmas time, Fariss said.
Colbern Linkous, a newly elected Dublin Town Council member who has been one of Burns' harshest critics, looks back on the controversy and concedes that Burns "was probably right in the end, maybe."
Nevertheless, Burns stirred things up unnecessarily, Linkous believes.
"You know the old saying, leave a sleeping dog alone. If he hadn't woken up, he wouldn't have started barking."i
A hasty goodbyei
Conspicuously absent from the School Board's last meeting with Burns was a send-off for him.
That week, the board had punch and cookies to salute two retiring employees and outgoing board member Thomas Thompson.
But nothing for Burns.
His sudden decision to accept the Georgia job had stunned and angered School Board members.
"Our biggest disappointment with James Burns is that he broke his four-year contract," board member Anne Neighbors said. "Angry? Yes, I was angry. Very angry."
Burns said he accepted the new job to be closer to his and his wife's parents and his daughters in Florida.
"Professionally, it went totally against the grain," Neighbors said of Burns' decision to leave so soon. "He felt terribly guilty about it."
Most teachers are disappointed that Burns is leaving, regardless of whether they liked him, said Don Skeen, president of the Pulaski County Education Association.
"But they think quite frankly that it's an unprofessional thing that he's done," Skeen said.
Burns' contract included no penalty clause - a mistake never to be repeated, said board Vice Chairman Ronald Chaffin. "The contract needs to protect both sides - this particular one did not."
Chaffin said the board discussed in executive session the possibility of "selling" Burns to Muscogee County - since he had three years to go under his contract. "But there's no legal way we can do that."
The board is at fault for not being shrewder, Chaffin said. Burns is a smooth negotiator, to say the least. "He taught us well."
Burns' contract provided a $9,500 tax-deferred annuity for each year's service. In closed-door negotiations, the board agreed to give him credit for working a full year and agreed to pay the annuity.
His contract began July 1 last year and his last official day was today, June 22. He actually finished his work June 15, however, since he had a week's vacation left and used it.
The School Board is under pressure from some in the community to hire someone local, or someone less progressive, to take Burns' place.
Board member Neighbors said,"We have no preconceived notions" about who will be hired.
The board is conducting a national search, with help from the Virginia School Boards Association and advertisements in national publications.
Sometimes industries or businesses in need of dramatic restructuring will hire trouble-shooters - managers who stay only a short time to make changes too radical for longtime employees to pull off.
This was not the board's intention in hiring Burns. But in effect, it's what happened.
It would have been difficult for Kenneth Dobson to bite the bullet and reduce staff, given his close ties in the community, sources say.
The reductions were necessary, since the school system has lost 1,200 students over the past five years, Burns has said.
"The fact that he's leaving so abruptly and quickly will give those who fought him some degree of satisfaction," said Wood of the Pentecostal Holiness Church. "Most everybody's pleased that he's going."
Others aren't so pleased and wish Burns had stayed longer.
Fariss thinks the county's schools "will be more current, more academically oriented . . . for his having been here. I just wish it could have been a little longer."
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