Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 16, 1993 TAG: 9302160250
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Long
SUPERINTENDENT HOPEFUL PLEDGES FISCAL RESTRAINT
A candidate for school superintendent stumped on the need for financial responsibility in meetings with Montgomery County teachers and parents Monday.Richard Holzman, one of two finalists to succeed Superintendent Harold Dodge, who departs June 30, returned to one theme again and again: the need to work within budget constraints when considering new programs or evaluating older ones.
Sometimes more money is not needed for new programs, he told teachers. "Sometimes it just takes a redirection of priorities."
Around 40 county teachers met with Holzman after school at the Christiansburg High School auditorium. And later, roughly 100 parents and local citizens quizzed him for over an hour in the high school library.
Holzman, 53, lives in Schenectady, N.Y., and is a Long Island native. He was last superintendent of the Middletown, N.J. schools, whose board of education voted unanimously in September to discharge him.
Asked about that and votes of no confidence he received from teachers and administrators in Middletown, Holzman explained he had come into a situation in which the school system was running a deficit and tough choices had to be made. He said that teachers are very difficult to work with in a highly unionized state like New Jersey.
As for his problem with administrators there, he said he had disciplined a longtime principal, which didn't go over well with his union. His decision was supported by an arbitrator. "The man wasn't doing his job."
Explaining the friction he has encountered with teachers and parents, not just in Middletown but elsewhere, Holzman said, "When it comes to keeping the budget balanced in a school district, I think I'm pretty tough."
An effective school system has to meet a three-way test for economy, efficiency and effectiveness, Holzman said.
Every program in the system should be evaluated on an ongoing basis, he said. Maybe some programs were good in their time but now that time is passed and they should be eliminated.
Linda Ives, a teacher at Shawsville High School and president of the Montgomery County Education Association, said after Holzman's session with teachers that she felt better after listening to him than she did after reading news reports and talking with teachers where he had worked before. But she said she is reserving judgment about his suitability for the Montgomery County job.
Kimberle Badinelli of Blacksburg, president of the county PTA council, said she found Holzman "evasive." Badinelli said she wished she had had more time to talk with him.
"I don't sense a commitment to parental involvement [in him]," she said.
Many of the questions asked by parents and others focused on specific programs offered by the school system: inclusion or mainstreaming of special-education students, special classes for the gifted, minority hiring and getting back to basics.
Inclusion is "clearly the wave of the future" and can be better for students and sounder economically, Holzman said. "It's extremely important for kids to be part of the regular classroom to the greatest extent possible."
Holzman questioned the large number of Montgomery students that have been classified as gifted - about 1,200 - and suggested the way they get into the program needs to be re-evaluated. If a program is for the gifted, it has to be "pretty rarefied," he said.
Throughout his career he has made an effort to recruit minorities, Holzman said. "We should strive to make our school systems reflect what is in our society and in our country," he said.
John LeDoux of Blacksburg, who teaches engineering courses at Virginia Tech, said he was appalled when he came to Tech 12 years ago at the poor preparation he found in kids entering college and wanted to know how Holzman felt about education in the basics.
"There is no substitute for solid academics," Holzman responded, stressing that was true not just for bright kids but for the average child as well.
Teachers' questions dealt more with Holzman's relationship with employee groups and school operations but they also questioned him about educational programs.
Describing himself as a "hands-on superintendent," Holzman said he would rather err on the side of including more people in educational decisions than not enough.
Holzman said he agreed with the School Board's move toward the site-based management of county schools, a management style that places decisions about the use of resources in the hands of teachers and building administrators.
"Site-based management should be limited only by the willingness of [a school's employees] to be accountable for the decisions that are made," he said.
Holzman is a supporter of foreign language instruction in the lower grades. His own three children benefited from such a program and are bilingual. "It's critically important for us as educators to give our students a world view," he said.
What is considered vocational education is in many instances antiquated, he said. He said he supports technologically up-to-date programs that are coupled with apprenticeship programs.
He spoke in favor of "theme" or "magnet" elementary schools, in which students can choose to attend a school that focuses on a particular realm of study, such as math and science or the arts. Such schools operate in Schenectady, where Holzman was superintendent between 1987 and 1990, and in Roanoke.
He said he was very committed to education in the arts and believes arts education should be taught along with other subjects. "I've never recommended cutting one arts position."
But Holzman promised that, if he was hired, he didn't plan to come into the system and impose his ideas on people.
"I want to have to sell my ideas to the faculty as I want you to sell your ideas to me," he told the teachers.