Interview with William O. Lee, Jr.

A: OK. I was born and raised in Frederick and attended the schools here in Frederick County when the schools were segregated. I graduated from Lincoln High School, which was the black school for students at that time and up until 1962 when the schools were integrated here in Frederick. I spent three years in the U.S. Navy. This was after graduating from high school. After getting out of the Navy in 1948, I decided I was going to go to college and I went to several schools before I settled on one. I went to Morgan State University in Baltimore. I went to Lincoln University in Oxford, Pennsylvania and I finally settled down in Howard University in Washington, D.C. where I graduated in 1954 with a degree in physical education. My graduate work was done at Western Maryland College.

Q: How many years have you been in education as a teacher and a principal?

A: OK. I was in education for 29 years. As a teacher, 16 years; eight years at Lincoln High School, the school that I graduated from, as a PE teacher; and eight years at West Frederick Junior High School where I taught physical education. I became an administrator in 1970 and I spent a total of 18 years in administration. One year as a vice principal, six years as the associate principal, and six years as a principal.

Q: Bill, could you describe your school?

A: West Frederick served students in the south end of Frederick city and the south end of Frederick County. The student make-up crossed every economic status that you could think of: rich whites to middle-class whites and blacks to poor whites and blacks. The enrollment as a junior high school ranged as high as 1400 in grades 7, 8 and 9, and as a middle school, grades 6, 7, and 8, the enrollment averaged about 1000 students. Minorities made up about 17 percent of the population there. There was a great misconception among people in the community because many people thought that West Frederick had a majority of minority or black students when it was just the opposite. They have never had more than about 17 percent minority or black student population.

Q: Why did you become a principal?

A: Well, I guess I really didn't even think about it, Dave. Persons in the local school and central office sort of encouraged me to apply for the position that had opened up. Bill Barry, if you remember, he taught English at West Frederick while I was teaching physical education and he became the vice principal and he received an appointment as principal at Thurmont Middle School. So that left the position in the building open and I was encouraged to apply, which I did. The team who interviewed me, as well as the board member, saw fit to appoint me as the vice principal. That was in September of 1970 that I was appointed to that position.

Q: Were there any people, in particular, that encouraged or told you how to go about that as it lead to you being a principal?

A: Well, Mr. Frank Lewis who was the principal at West Frederick at that time, he told me, you know, to write a letter. Don Koons encouraged me. He was down at the Board at that time. So, there were lots of people who evidently saw something in me of principal or administrative material and who encouraged me along the way. Bill Barry, others like that.

Q: What was your typical work day like? What did you do?

A: OK. I would arrive at school by 6:00 every morning, I was there. Say between 6:00 and 7:00 AM I would receive calls or you know, as a principal you were always expecting someone to call in. That is a teacher, you know, that they would not be in. I found out early in the game that the earlier the teachers let me know that they were not coming in, the better chance I had of getting the better substitutes. So, I used to encourage my teachers to call me as early as 8:00 in the morning and would be at school to receive those calls. During that time, I would also clean up my desk from the previous day's work and get ready for today. Somewhere between 7:00 and 8:00, I would make myself available to teachers, students, parent conferences, or anything that had to be done or came up. From 8:00 to 3:00, which was the school day practically, I was visiting classrooms, holding conferences, meeting with people, doing paperwork, just attending meetings outside the building. One thing, though, I was blessed with having competent people to work with me. So, my day was kind of busy yet I enjoyed every bit of it. Starting at 7:00 and most times I would be until 5:00 or 5:30 to clean up the day's work.

Q: What kind of pressures did you encounter as a principal and how did you go about handling them?

A: Well, I thought about that when I read that question. I guess, the biggest pressure was to make sure that the school was going to run as smoothly as it possibly could each day. Being in a middle school or junior high school, anything can happen during the day. It is not a routine set up, you know. It's not business as usual everyday. Things are different everyday and I guess my biggest concern was making sure that things went smoothly during the day.

Q: What was it about your personality you think that really allowed you to be a successful principal?

A: Well, I guess, first of all, I love to be around people. One of the things that I've always tried to make a part of my personality is to show respect for people as human beings and to first treat people as I want to be treated. I think if we do that then this is one of the keys to helping you get along with people. I also felt that I had the kind of personality that allowed people to -- that I was warm to people and such things such as patience, as understanding. I am a considerate person. I'm honest. I'm fair. I have compassion for people. I have respect for people. Those kinds of things were certainly important in helping me.

Q: What did your teachers expect you to be for them as a principal?

A: Well, the teachers felt, or expected I'm sure, me to be the institutional leader. They wanted me to set the tone. They expected me to set the tone for the building and to determine the direction in which the school was going to go. The teachers also expected principals to be supportive of them, to come forward in time of need, to be fair and be consistent and they expected the principal to provide an environment in which teachers can teach and in which students can learn.

Q: How did you go about evaluating your teachers in general? How did you make them feel important?

A: The county had, as you know, an evaluative machine that we use to do formal observations and evaluations. There were other ways of evaluating your teachers, too, such as noticing their management styles, how they controlled their children in the classroom as far as discipline is concerned, whether they were effective teachers' whether the students were learning anything. I also used as a saute the children themselves. They could tell you alot of things. Parents. Comments of parents. The knowledge of their subject matter. How much the teachers had the knowledge of their subject matter. Acceptance of criticism. especially constructive criticism and how they got along with their peers. Those were some of the other ways that I evaluated teachers. I used to make it a practice, and I still do, of patting them on the back once in a while. You know, all of us need to be stroked once in a while. We all want to be told, you know, that you are doing a good job or whatever, and that kind of helps us out. And from time to time when a teacher did something beyond the call of duty or just did something nice or good, I generally told them and I'd drop a note in their mailbox and put a copy of it in their file. Those kinds of things. Very complimentary. I was always appreciative of things that people did to improve the school.

Q: I'm sure you did. Did you have teacher grievances and how did you handle them?

A: Once in a while, now I did not have too many problems in this area with teacher grievances. But, when there would be a problem, my attitude or my position was to sit down, to listen to both sides -- I took no sides -- and then I would make a decision if it was up to me to make a decision, I would make a decision on the information that I had and hopefully, and the times that I had to do that which was very rare, we would either compromise. But, anyway, it would be a decision that each party could live with and the thing would be settled.

Q: Did you ever get involved in releasing or firing a teacher and what steps were involved in that?

A: The only times that I might have been involved with firing a teacher, well I never did have to fire a teacher, but as you know from time to time as enrollment decreased in schools, so does staff and that was always a problem when the area director would come around and say you are going to have to cut 2 1/2 teachers and then you have to look at your curriculum and decide where you are going to cut. And then, after you have made your decision, the next tough job is to tell that person. That was probably the one thing about the job that I did not like to do, to tell someone that they no longer have a job here. So, that's the toughest thing I had to do.

Q: What do you think about merit pay? What would you think about using that?

A: Well, I think that teachers who do work beyond the call of duty or who are ambitious, have a lot of motivation, that they need to be recognized and that we do need to kind of set them aside or do something special for them in some ways to show the appreciation and to keep them motivated as well as to encourage other teachers to strive to do the same kinds of things. I would be for merit pay because I think people need to be given recognition for things that they do well or do exceptionally well.

Q: Bill, tell us a little bit about the civil rights issues during your tenure as a Frederick principal and how did you handle those issues in your building?

A: By the time I got to, well first off, we never really had too many racial problems here in the school system in Frederick. I guess you can contribute that to the superintendent who was here at the time in the 50's, going back to the 60's, early 60's, late 50's, early 60's and to the principal at Lincoln High School, my high school principal. Eugene Pruitt was the superintendent of Frederick County Schools at the time and a gentleman by the name of Charles E. Hensen was the principal at Lincoln High School. He was black. When the decision was made in 1954 that schools would no longer be segregated, those two, along with other people, began to prepare the people in the Frederick community, Frederick County, for integration. What they would do, Mr. Pruitt and Mr. Hensen would go out into the communities, especially the white communities, and explain to them and talk to the people and tell them what was coming off and how it was going to be done so that when they did integrate a school in a particular community, there was very little, if any, problems. The same thing happened at West Frederick when it first opened. West Frederick opened in 1958 and at this time Lincoln School was still operating as a black school and when West Frederick opened in 1958 the school board took the incoming seventh grade to Lincoln School came to West Frederick. So that meant at Lincoln we had only grades 8 through 12 because the incoming seventh grade, which was all black, went to West Frederick when it opened. Then the following year at Lincoln you had nine through twelve and when it got down to just the two grades, 11 and 12, they sent those students over to Frederick High School. Those black students became a part of Frederick High School and the teachers were transferred to the other schools, or rather integrated into the other schools, throughout the county. This was 1962. This was at the end of school year 1962 when this happened.

Q: Was there much busing in Frederick? How did you handle that in your school?

A: No. Here in the Frederick community or county' we did not have too much of the busing problems or much busing at all because what they did. The children just went to the schools in their district. So, there was no need to bus children through out Frederick County except one instance here in the county. I think this was about 1968 when the federal government came in, and this only affected the city schools, that there have to be a certain percentage of minority students in the city schools and this did mean some busing for them so this meant one of the schools that was affected and was under the percentage was Waverley. So, they did and we still do, I believe have some students from the West All Saints Street area who would normally go to South Frederick Elementary School, they are being bused out to Waverley. But I understand that that probably will be discontinued after this year. But that is to satisfy the federal government. That's the only time, the only instance that I can think of when we have had any busing. Now as far as problems and the racial problems in the schools. sure they had some but nothing to the extent that you heard about in some of the larger cities. This was a small town at the time. Most everybody knew each other. Even though the schools were segregated we still knew each other and played with each other after school and lived in the same communities some of us did. But, at that time were going to different schools. So, it is not like it was completely new -- we didn't know the people, they didn't know us -- but for the most part we knew each other because of the town being so small at the time and the growth that has taken place now was not nearly what it is at that time. So, the problems were minimal.

Q: What type of organization did you have in your school to work with your community?

A: I guess the only organization that probably worked with the community in the school would be the PTA organization. And fortunately for me, especially when I became principal, Mrs. Anita Stup who is now president of the county Board of Commissioners for Frederick County, she was the president of my PTA and did an excellent job. She came to school as regular as the children did. She'd either call me in the morning or she would come by the school each day - "anything we need, how are things going, is there anything I can do for you" - you know, she was very helpful. So consequently, we had a very good and a very active PTA during my tenure as principal. A lot of it was due to Mrs. Stup.

Q: What were the most difficult experiences you had in community relations and what did you learn from those experiences?

A: You know, I thought about that. I never really had too much problem with community relations or relating to people. I guess one example that I might give is that, I'll give two examples. When I first became vice principal, two boys got into a fight in the building and one was white, one was black. It was not a racial fight it was just two boys fighting and it just happened to be one black and one white and so I suspended both boys. The grandfather of the white boy came to school. Now, he didn't realize and he didn't know that I had suspended the black boy too, and he was coming in with his own prejudices and so forth. He immediately, I guess, accused me of being prejudice, that I was treating his grandson differently than I was treating the other boy and so forth. My philosophy, or my policy has been to always, you know when somebody comes in like that, let him have his say, let him get it off his chest and then I told him what the real story was. His grandson knew anyway see. But I guess that was, I can't remember too many problems with public relations and working with people. I said I was going to relate two incidences but the other one has slipped my mind at this time.

Q: On the other side of it, what were your most enjoyable and successful experiences with community relations?

A: I guess I used to say wherever there are people. you will find me. And just being involved in organizations, clubs, or whatever that are set up to help people gives me a lot of pleasure. I get a lot of pleasure, even now I get people who call me almost daily with some kind of a need -- "do you know where I can get a loan, do you know where there is a house, will you go to school with me, my child is having problems" -- I get that too, Dave. I have been to the school three or four times this year with parents as an advocate, you know, for the parent. So, I feel challenged when they come to me. It's like you are the last resort. "You've got to help me." And I just feel, that's the way I feel they feel and I'll go all out to do what I can to solve whatever concern or problem they have.

Q: In terms of superintendents, what qualities or characteristics were most effective for you to run your school?

A: I guess, qualities of the superintendent? One who expressed confidence in that he knew that you could do the job and allowed you and gave you the freedom to run the school under the guidelines that were set up by the system. That's the way I would describe the kind of superintendent I would like. Someone who is supportive, open, who listens, you know.

Q: If you could -- this is a big question too, obviously -- if you could change any five areas in U.S. education, what would they be and why would you change them?

A: I guess one area -- I thought about that question too, I didn't come up with five, but I had a couple that I thought about that maybe I would like to change if I had an opportunity to do it -- one was when we took the stick out of the school. Now, I don't want to give the wrong impression that I think that we ought to have corporal punishment, but when we did that I think we really took some control away from the teacher or something that you could hold over a child's head because then the attitude was "you can't touch me, you can't do this, I'll do what I want to do" and that kind of an attitude. I think that was bad for education. I don't think that we ought to have to use corporal punishment but I think we ought to have some way of having students' respect or to do what is expected of them in the classroom without having a lot of commotion over it or conflicts and so forth. The other thing I sometimes think about where I think we hurt has to do with teacher preparedness, being prepared for teaching. I don't think that our colleges, and I don't know how to explain this other than from experience of being a principal, really prepare our teachers for the classroom - for the real classroom, see. They have the book knowledge and they've got the knowledge of their field but other things such as management, prepared lesson plans, discipline procedures, those kinds of things. I think somewhere would be of great help to a first-year teacher if they had some skills in just those couple of areas, along with the other things that are necessary when going into the classroom. I had some things written down on that question.

Q: Bill, in terms of discipline, what was your discipline policy? How did you discipline kids and if you ever did use corporal punishment, what were your guidelines and how did you use corporal punishment?

A: I never used corporal punishment and I did not encourage it in the building. The philosophy I had was, and I told the children that "when you're in the building here you have to do what we expect you to do, what we ask you to do and if you don't do that then something unpleasant is going to happen to you. But, you have to do what we ask you to do. Now, if you don't agree with what's being done to you then you have some options. You can tell the teacher in a nice way, you can come down and tell me and if you are not satisfied, you got an ace in the hole - your parents. I said their not going to see anyone mistreat you. So let them fight your battles for you. Don't you fight it. Let your parents fight it. They can do a much better job than you can. You are going to mess it up but we, as adults, can work it out." That's kind of the feeling that I tried to give to the students, you know. You don't solve it. And, consequently, this happened any number of times when there would be conflicts among a couple of students or even groups of students in the building. They would come down to the office. I would say we were going to sit down and talk about it. I said they were not going to solve it by fighting or mouthing off at each other. We would solve it as intelligent human people. So, that's kind of my philosophy on discipline and when they did do something - we had rules for various offenses and all even before we came out with the discipline notebook, you know the book that we get now. If you're smoking there is a certain thing; if you're fighting, this is what is going to happen; misbehaving in the classroom, this is going to happen; you know, in steps and so forth. I required a conference. When a student was suspended, before they were able to come back to school, I had to talk to some parent or whoever the guardian was. It wasn't going to be that you were out for three days and you just come right on back in. We had to talk to someone about your problem to try to make sure we don't have it happening over and over again. So, that's one of the things I was kind of proud of to see, and I think this was one of your questions too, to see the image of West Frederick change. When I first went to West Frederick it was known as probably one of the worst schools in the county to work at because of the mixture of the students and they were "city kids" and different than the students you would find in the rural schools. We worked hard, teachers, at trying to turn that image around. It used to be that if a teacher would be at teachers' meetings or something and they said "where do you work" and you say "I work at West Frederick" and they say "West Frederick, whew, how can you say anything." And teacher were embarrassed. You may have heard that. But gradually we turned that around so much to the point that I had teachers who would call me and ask me, when they found out that we had a vacancy, they wanted to come to West Frederick. Parents, the same way. Wanting their children to come to West Frederick. So, that's probably one of the successes that I treasure most is turning that image of West Frederick around from a negative to a more positive image where people do care about children and where you don't have to be afraid that your child's going to get hurt in the building during the day or anything like that. You can be secure in your work and you go on to work and don't worry about them. We will take care of them. That's probably the most successful thing that I can think of.

Q: When you had those parents in, especially in a problem situation, and they were the ones who were going to solve it, how did you go about getting them to have a meeting of the minds? I know you obviously had some diverse opinions come in.

A: Well, what I generally did, I had parents come in because they are going to say they had their say and I let them have their say. I let them have their say, get it all out, and then I would say "now, how can we solve this? Let's work now to solve the problem. What can we do? What can the school do? What can you do?" And, then we worked together like that. But, you have to let them get it out. Let them get it out of their system and then after they had done that, I did not argue with them. I never argued back with a parent. I sat and listened and some were disrespectful sometimes but I still let them do it. I used to have a saying that I can never remember anyone coming in my building for conferences they would come in angry but they always went out happy and shaking my hand and thanking me. I've never had a parent go away angry.

Q: In terms of teacher preparation, Bill, what can a principal do to help that new teacher gain the real life classroom experiences that he or she needs to be successful?

A: Well, I guess some of the things we can do are things that we are doing now. It's always good to assign a "buddy", have them work under a buddy system, make sure that they have all of the material that they need to work with; whether it is the curriculum or paper, pencils or whatever it is, make sure they have the necessary materials that they will need in the classroom. Give them the school handbook so that they know what the rules and regulations are and what's expected of the teachers and what's expected of the students. Work with them on lesson plan preparation. Those kinds of things is what I think are important in really getting a teacher adjusted to a school.

Q: We talked about superintendents and characteristics. What characteristics would not be effective, would not be helpful for a principal? What characteristics in a superintendent would not be helpful?

A: Well, I guess as I think about it, I'm trying to think of a superintendent whose, perhaps, characteristics were not so helpful in a system. And, I would say you certainly don't want a superintendent that "it's got to be his way or no way." He should be open to suggestions from principals and the people who are under him. I guess that would be the main thing I'd be concerned about. That he is not a dictator type.

Q: In terms of working with the community, you mentioned the PTA president being so important and being so visible. Was there any resentment in your building about the PTA president being there everyday and how did you handle that?

A: No. The teachers didn't mind because she didn't interfere with the teachers or their classrooms or anything like that. She came straight to the office and, in fact, on some days she was helpful. She did some clerical work for teachers. You know, teachers were always happy to have someone to come in to check papers or help them out with clerical work and things like that. So, she was very valuable to us in our building in many ways and we had other parents who came in too who would help out but none interfered or showed any concern about what was going on in the classroom to the extent that it bothered the teachers and they didn't say "oh, I don't want to see her in here again."

Q: We talked about busing and the busing, I think, in '68 was city oriented. Was there any discussion or friction about a county busing pattern? I'm thinking maybe the blacks in New London might have wanted to have gone to Linganore as opposed to Frederick High. Was that ever an issue that you were involved in or know about?

A: No. I'm not aware that that was an issue. I know for sports reasons you may have had some kids who may have lived in the county and might have wanted to come to Frederick High School at that time because they had the best sports teams in the county at the time. I can think of one student who lived down in the New Market area and should have gone to Linganore but somehow or another he was allowed to come into Frederick to play basketball. Then there was another student I know of that lived in Walkersville, and at this time Walkersville did not have football, and he wanted to play football so he came into Frederick to play football. But, in both those cases, they were responsible for their own transportation.

Q: So, when the incoming seventh grade at Lincoln High went to West Frederick, some of those kids could have gone to seventh grade elsewhere if they wanted to? They could have gone to wherever, Linganore?

A: No. No. Yes. Yes. They went to the schools in the districts they lived. For example, the kids who went to West Frederick, they were the city kids. They were mostly the city kids and the kids who lived in areas like Urbana, Adamstown, the southern part of the county. Now, we had children there from Brunswick, too. See, all of the black students in the county attended the one high school. So they came from all over the communities to Lincoln for high school. So we had kids from Brunswick. So, when this happened, the seventh graders who would have gone into the Lincoln school went to Brunswick. The Walkersville kids went to Walkersville. The ones who lived in New Market or area, if Linganore was built at the time, they went to Linganore. That's how it was done. Middletown kids, which has always been very few black kids in Middletown until recent years, they went to Middletown. But the majority of the students went to West Frederick. The black students went to West Frederick.

Q: Do you believe the black community lost anything with integration in Frederick?

A: Definitely. We lost that closeness. We lost the, not caring, but we did lose. Let me explain it like this. In the black community, there has always been a sense of togetherness. When the schools were segregated the black teachers lived in the black communities because that's were you had to live. So, consequently, you got to know the families of the children that you taught well because lots of times you may have been buddies with the father or socialized with them and so it made a difference in the tenor of the school. It made a difference in the atmosphere of the school because the kids knew he might go home tonight when he sees my dad and tell him some such thing. So it did make a difference. The black teachers at that time, too, were I don't want to say they seemed to be more concerned about black kids' learning. So, there was great emphasis placed on that "you're going to get it or else you're not going out of here until." You were retained, you know. That was the time we didn't have the social promotion type of thing. If you didn't get the work or accomplish what you were supposed to then you stayed there until you did. So, there was seemingly more concern and more of an effort to make sure that the black kids did or were successful in the schools at that time. When integration came. lots of our kids got lost and one of the reasons was that some of the white teachers did not know how to deal with them. Well some had had little or no connection with a black student and they may have been involved -- I'll just say were afraid -- in some instances. So, when the black students came into the class in many instances they were told "behave yourself, sit in the back of the room, sit there and I'll see that you move through." But he didn't learn anything. He wasn't learning anything that way. So, those are the kinds of things that have hurt us and maybe got us where we are today and why we are with the MAP program -- trying to correct some of these things.

Q: In terms of opportunity in leadership roles, what was it like being a black leader in the school system? Was there any resentment about others not being black leaders? Just what was it like being a black leader? There weren't that many, I guess.

A: No. I never sensed any negative feelings or anything because I was an administrator in the school system or any other black principal. I don't believe they -- I never personally experienced any negative feelings from anyone because I was the principal of the school or vice principal or whatever or administrator. I never had any feelings like that.

Q: What do you think about merit pay for administrators?

A: That's a new one on me. I hadn't heard that one. (I just thought it up.) I don't know about pay but certainly if an administrator does something exceptional or comes up with a good program that's going to be helpful for the system or something, certainly he should be recognized for it but I don't know about extra pay. Because, generally your administrators are getting a rather decent pay on a good salary scale. I don't know whether we ought to carry merit pay past teachers. I wouldn't want to carry it past teachers.

Q: Bill, what have I not asked you that I should have?

A: Well, I guess one of the things that you may have asked me is why did I retire when I did? (Good question.) I had always said that when I got 55 years old, I hoped I would be in a position, financially, to retire. And the reason for that is that in my family, we either lived long lives or we died accidentally or some tragic death as young people, as young adults or something. This has happened all through my life and all through my family's history. I have had some that have lived as long as 105 years old on both sides of my family. My great-grandfather. Great-grandmother. in their 80's. My mother is 80 right now. My aunt is 85 and they are still going strong. On the other hand. I had an uncle killed in World War II who was just 20. In India my grandfather's brother was killed in the first World War in the Calvary as a young man. So, there have been kind of tragic things that have happened in our family life that I said, well, I don't know what side I'm on or, you know, I'm on that side that's going to go early or the side that's going to stay here awhile but I think that at 55 I would like to quit because that's a nice age and maybe do some things that I'd like to do so that when my time comes I'll have no regrets. And so, when I turned 55 back in '83, and I'll be celebrating my 60th birthday next Saturday, I just decided that, well here it is. I made the decision and things have worked well for me financially. My kids were out of school at the time so there wasn't anyone but my wife and I and she was still working and was going to continue to work a little longer so I made the decision to retire and I didn't second-guess myself, didn't look back and say "Oh, did you do the right thing." Once I said I was going to retire then I just looked forward to retiring. I've never tried to second-guess myself wondering if I made the right decision or anything like that. That's how I got out of the school system. The one thing I miss most out of it, though, is the children. I do miss being associated with the children. I don't miss the paperwork and all that other stuff that goes with being an administrator but I do miss being around the children. It doesn't affect me too much anymore because I'm in my fifth year of retirement right now. So, it's kind of gotten away. The one thing -- I think it must have been the last when I turned my keys in. You see, I'd always been used, as a building principal, you could go into the building any time, day or night, morning, always just as often or as much like going into your own home. The day I turned my keys in, the thought came across my mind, you will never be able to get into this building again like you used to. And, maybe for about ten minutes, I was a little low, you know. But after that I got over it. As you know, I got involved in politics after I got out of the school system. I sat out a year and things work for the best. My youngest brother was sick at the time with cancer and he wasn't in a position where they could have help to come in. His wife couldn't stay home. So, the year that I retired was the year that he was very sick and so I looked after him every day. I'd go out to his he lived in Buckeystown and I would go down to Buckeystown every day about 10:00 and stay with him the whole day until his wife came home from work. He died in July of '84 at 52 years old. Some talk about dying young.

Q: You mentioned politics, Bill. How are politics the same and how is it different from being a principal?

A: It's the same. I've often explained to people I don't see any difference except that my clients are mainly adults now whereas in the school system they were students. But you still get people coming in with complaints, either somebody is calling you, or has got a concern. It's basically the same. I see very little difference.

Q: I guess community relations is still all there?

A: Right. That's what it is.

Q: What else should I have asked? What other questions do you want to ask or have answered or you would want to answer?

A: I can't think of anything right off, Dave. OK, Bill, I thank you. This is an interview with William 0. Lee, Jr. on April 28, 1988, and the interviewer is David Campbell.

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