Roanoke Times Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc. DATE: SATURDAY, June 19, 1993 TAG: 9306190026 SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER DATELINE: COLONIAL HEIGHTS LENGTH: Long
They'll tell you that Colonial Heights schools have better scores than surrounding school divisions and some of the best in Virginia.
Herman Bartlett Jr., superintendent in the Colonial Heights division for eight years and the force behind the effort to boost the system's test results, will succeed Harold Dodge as Montgomery County's superintendent on July 1.
"He's a very competitive person; he's very test-conscious," Wanda McNeer, a kindergarten teacher and president of the Colonial Heights Education Association, said of Bartlett.
Competitive is just one of the adjectives used to describe Bartlett's leadership.
People in this city of 16,100 also refer to him as open, hard-working, hands-on and forward-thinking. Some also characterize him as arbitrary and hard to get along with.
The Montgomery School Board turned to Bartlett - one of six semifinalists for the superintendent's job - in February after the board's two top choices failed to satisfy parents and teachers.
Bartlett, 49, is a Grayson County native and holds a doctorate from Virginia Tech. Before going to Colonial Heights, he was Craig County's superintendent for four years. He and his wife, Susan, have two children, including a daughter who is a student at Tech.
In Montgomery County, Bartlett will oversee a school division of 8,500 students and 19 schools, compared with the system of 2,700 students and five schools that he leaves behind. He'll be paid $80,000 next year, $15,000 more than his current salary.
Bartlett was a regular visitor in classroom, the lunchroom and the teachers' lounge in Colonial Heights, but because of the size of Montgomery County he'll find it tougher to get around in his new division.
"He's very, very much in the schools," said Mona Harrison, a teacher at North Elementary School. "Little children know who the superintendent is in Colonial Heights."
To understand the impact of decisions made at the central office, Bartlett said he wants to know what teachers are doing in the classroom.
"I'm willing to spend the 12 to 14 hours a day it takes to do that," Bartlett said. "I really think that's the bottom line with Herman Bartlett."
Besides being known as a hard worker, Bartlett has a reputation as an innovator.
"He's been forward-thinking and he's taken us ahead," said Bonnie Erickson, a library aide and president of the Parent-Teachers Organization at Colonial Heights High School.
Significant changes that Erickson and others recall Bartlett making include the creation of a teachers' advisory council, the computerization of the schools and central office, an improved school maintenance program and the start of extension reading programs in the elementary schools.
Bartlett himself mentions a switch to a seven-period school day in which few students go to study halls, revamping the English curriculum and a move to a middle-school concept among the significant changes he's made at Colonial Heights.
Comparative test results for Virginia in the 1990-91 school year - the latest available - show that Colonial Heights students scored above the state average in all but one of 21 categories. The percentage of sixth-graders passing all three Literacy Passport tests also was one of the highest in the state.
The effort to boost test scores at Colonial Heights was a natural progression from his interest in how the performance of one child compares to that of another, Bartlett said.
At the start of his tenure there, he looked at the curriculum and found deficiencies in language arts and reading comprehension.
In response, Bartlett started an extension reading program in the elementary grades, pulling children who need more attention on reading out of their regular classrooms to work in smaller groups with a special reading teacher.
"Reading is one of the most important things you can teach in school," Bartlett said. "If a student isn't a good reader, a student will have trouble in other areas."
The extension program drew a mixed response from teachers, said Harrison, an elementary teacher. The program was good because it divided the children into smaller groups, but teachers worried about pupils in the primary grades moving about so much.
Still, Harrison said Bartlett has worked well with the Colonial Heights Education Association for which she is North Elementary's faculty representative. He has been very open to meeting with teachers about issues they feel are important, she said.
"I won't say he's always agreed [with teachers]," she added.
In Colonial Heights, 85 percent of the work force is employed outside the city. The Army's Fort Lee at Petersburg is the largest employer.
Ninety-five percent of the residents are white, a figure similar to Montgomery County.
The city's residents are wealthier, with an average family income of $41,000, compared with $32,000 in Montgomery County.
Donna Davis, who works in a real estate office in Colonial Heights, recalled how Bartlett made a point of dropping by and offering her encouragement when she was going through a crisis with her daughter, a student at the high school.
"I have found Mr. Bartlett to be a very enthusiastic booster of children and their needs," she said.
Another local businesswoman, who asked not to be named, said Bartlett had treated her rudely at a City Council meeting and added that the teachers she has talked with did not care for the superintendent.
A similar picture of Bartlett is found in news stories earlier this year when the Colonial Heights School Board voted 3-2 to reappoint him for another term. School Board member William Reade said he voted against Bartlett because he wasn't an effective leader and lacked the support of a majority of the people in the school system.
In his own defense, Bartlett says his determination to get the job done sometimes meets resistance from those slow or unwilling to change.
"I just believe when I get direction from the School Board, I carry it out," Bartlett said. "In these cases where people aren't willing to do that, I'm extremely direct about what I've got to do."
Erickson said her organization's relationship with Bartlett has been agreeable. She said she's sorry to seem him leave.
"He stepped on a few toes because he wanted people to move ahead and they weren't ready to move ahead," she said.
During a recent interview in his small Colonial Heights office, Bartlett explained that he sees the superintendent's role as being whatever the Montgomery County School Board wants him to be.
"I sense they feel they're a progressive school division and they want that trend continued," he said.
Bartlett believes total quality management principles - which transformed Japan into a world economic power and have found favor in many U.S. businesses - have a place in Montgomery County as the school system begins to look at ways to restructure itself into a better learning environment.
That kind of management means more thoroughly including parents and others in the community in planning and decision making.
"Our customers ought to be included," he said. "I think that's going to strengthen education immensely."
Total quality management, an idea that excites Bartlett, can be related to site-based management, a concept that Montgomery County has begun experimenting with under Dodge. Site-based management means giving individual schools the power to make the decisions that guide their operation.
Site-based management requires participation of parents, teachers, administrators and anyone else with an interest in the schools, Bartlett said.
"It's an excellent way to get community involvement."
During a meeting with Montgomery County parents and teachers in February, Bartlett said he tended to let teachers, parents and principals decide how to run the schools, with his role as one of providing guidance.
It's not possible to reach for the full potential of students without having some kind of participatory management, he said.
In the past, schools have aimed at the average student, but society can't afford that anymore, Bartlett said. In the global environment, society has to be more competitive and schools have to educate students to a higher level of sophistication, he said.