John Burgart
Dubuque Community School District Superintendent
The Iowa native, whose childhood experiences might have classified him as an "at-risk" student, enjoyed working behind the scenes.
Even when he was appointed interim superintendent in June 2002, few considered him "permanent" superintendent material - including school board members, who passed him over for the job.
However, Burgart got a break when the board's top pick declined the job.
Asked to stay on as interim superintendent, Burgart maintained a visible role during last fall's sales tax referendum campaign and sustained the support of district employees.
In January, the board removed "interim" from Burgart's title.
Here are excerpts of the TH's extensive interview with the superintendent.
TH: How would you summarize your life the past year?
JB: You know, personally, people think, "Well, you must have been on an emotional roller coaster." For whatever reason, I don't know, I've kept an even keel emotionally.
The board, I think, has been very fair to me and supportive, even though they were looking in a different direction (for a new superintendent). That part, I think, I've operated with equanimity.
|
John Burgart - Biographical profile
Age: 56 |
TH: What went through your mind when you were asked to be interim superintendent and then you didn't make the top three during the selection process?
JB: I barely had hung up the phone from the search firm, which indicated that I wasn't going to be one of those interviewed (for superintendent) when I picked up the phone and talked to the board. And I was positive. But I think they knew I was hurt. I'm an honest person, and I shared that fact.
While I certainly pledge my commitment and my intention to serve the district in whatever capacity, it was hurtful in that I put myself forward because, in my estimation, I could better provide the kind of continuity that I think our leadership needed at this particular time. So there was disappointment. But not anger. I never felt that at all.
TH:What do you think the board or the search firm or both missed about you at that stage in the process?
JB:I don't even know that they missed something. I think that the board clearly was looking for a superintendent who had a track record, perhaps, of visibility in the community. Connections with the business community I think were very important. They were responding to what they perceived as having been lacking in previous leadership.
In all fairness to them, as I said, I have been a behind-the-scenes person. I mean, I'm not a golfer, I'm not a... There are lots of ways in which many other folks who would be much more obviously a choice for somebody who was going to be the dynamic and charismatic individual who walks down the street. They work differently than I do. That isn't necessarily my style.
The board never suggested that what I was doing was not valuable and not done well. I think they were simply looking for something else.
And I think they also had the feeling that the last superintendent sort of inherited the superintendency from the previous superintendent. I think they perhaps felt they owed the community the assurance that they were looking as far and wide as necessary to find the right person for the Dubuque superintendency.
TH:During your interim role, the district had the sales tax referendum. I think it was clear to everyone in the community that you did make the effort to be more public. How difficult was the for you personally?
JB:I've been told that I seem comfortable in those settings. Frankly, I'm probably more comfortable in those settings than I am in the Chamber PM-type settings. I'm just not real comfortable in those kinds of schmoozing settings. But it is the sort of thing, by practice and familiarity, I'll gradually develop a comfort.
But I guess that I am of one mind with the board regarding the importance of community schools being a clear and visible partner with the community as a whole.
TH:What do you know now about the superintendent's job that you didn't know previously, even though you worked in the same building as the superintendent?
JB:I think part of what I'm aware of is the attention that people in the community give toward the school district. I mean, whether it's the folks sitting the dining room at a Assisi Village when I'm having dinner with my mother-in-law. Folks that I don't think, by their present position or what they're doing in the community, necessarily have any reason to pay attention to what we're doing. But folks do pay attention.
It's not so much a surprise, but the volume of different contacts that are made in a given day. Whether it's rotating from a meeting regarding foster grandparents to a discussion of contacting property owners.
TH:What do you consider the district's strongest points?
JB:Right now, given the financial situation across the state, I think the financial management that the district has had over any number of years, we have to recognize as allowing us to be in a good spot. We haven't overextended ourselves to the point where, in hard times, we have to really struggle to meet our budget.
I think we have an exceedingly hardworking staff. In a staff of 600 or 700 folks, there are going to be folks that we have problems with or we'll have identified needs for improvement. But for the most part, I can walk in any school and I can find stellar teachers, principals who care and are committed. I can walk into any of our support service areas. It's reflective of community values and Iowa work ethic - even if we get folks from Wisconsin or Illinois to work for us, we're going to say they adopt the "Iowa work ethic." That's wonderful.
We have good student achievement. We have challenges. But at every school, we have high performing kids. That's one of the struggles that I have, frankly, with the No Child Left Behind Act that assumes that a school that needs assistance is a school where the staff isn't doing the right thing. I don't see that to be true.
I see that as a strength, that folks who send their children and young people to our schools are going to have strong educational programs, everywhere they go.
TH:On the other side of the coin, what do you see as the weak areas?
JB:I would go right back to the issue of student achievement. While I think we have strong educational programs, I think we're going to be challenged to ensure the literal meaning of No Child Left Behind.
There are kids who are struggling. There are families who aren't able to provide or don't provide all of the support that a child needs in order to be successful in school. I think that we still need to strengthen sort of our intervention programs. What is it we're going to do? We can't control what happens at home. We can only control what really goes on at school. So identifying the kids who are struggling, whether they're English-language learners or whether they come from backgrounds of poverty, I think that will continue to be a challenge.
As far as other weaknesses, I don't see that there are areas of weakness.
I think we need to do a better job of staff evaluation across the district. We're struggling, like all districts, with the new evaluation system in Iowa. Having a clear way of giving feedback to teachers.
We also - and this is an area where I probably dropped the ball more than anybody else this year - we're trying to implement, after really not doing a very good job for a number of years, with the administrator evaluation system. We have the framework in place, but it really requires some consistent effort, probably on my part, to work with the principals to ensure that that happens.
I've struggled with the time to do a good job of that this year, and that's why I'm hoping the new associate superintendent (Lynne Devaney) can help me with that.
TH:I think it's safe to say that you're very popular among teachers and staff. I've got to ask you: Are you too nice a guy to crack down on some of these people?
JB:Do you know what? That's the very - really going back to your earlier question, that too is one of the questions that some of the board members had. "John's a nice guy. Is he going to be able to make the tough decisions?"
This might be the "expletive deleted" section of the interview. You've got to be an SOB sometimes. My point is - and my point to the board in response to that is - I think I can make tough decisions and I believe I have made tough decisions.
You can find many staff members with whom I've worked over the years who've said that I've made tough decisions and I've said "no" and I've signed letters of reprimand and I have directed areas for improvement and yet, I think I can do it in a way I don't think you have to be a cruel, vindictive, hard-nosed person in order to make tough decisions.
TH:While you were still in the interim role, you had to take a more visible role as it related to the sales tax referendum. Of course, you only conveyed information during that process.
JB:Yes, absolutely.
TH:But you were definitely out in the community and working with the volunteers who could advocate for that. After the tax was approved, you, others in the administration and the elected officials said, "We will be accountable to the public for where the money is spent." How will the school district go about doing that?
JB:A couple of things. I think we've already set a model in place with the instructional support levy.
We chose to code it (in financial reports) as if it were a grant, so that any time we can trace how much money was spent for each of the four priorities we said we'd spend it on: Reducing class size. Implementing everyday kindergarten. Increasing the building allocations that had been reduced over the years. Then spending on equipment for classrooms and labs and so forth.
The same way for the 1 percent sales tax money. I can see us putting together as part of our annual report that we publish each year: "Here's the progress we're making. Here's the revenue received. Here's the revenue that has been spent."
I just believe that the procedures are there. And we're open to other ideas for ways of making it even more publicly accountable.
TH:One of the criticisms of the school district going into that sales tax vote was, "Well, look, we really wouldn't have the space problem that the district is complaining about if we weren't throwing so much of our resources into special education and the programs we have for special needs children." I am interested in your thoughts in reaction to that.
JB:I guess my first reaction would be to acknowledge the truth of what you say.
The expansion of special education services and the increase - not just in Dubuque, not just in Iowa, but across the country - of the number of students being served through special education programs does have a higher cost, does have higher staff demands.
Whereas we might have - even though we don't like to - we might have kindergarten classrooms of 25, 26, special ed student/teacher loads are much lower. So that's true. When I taught in Hempstead, the largest department was the English department. Now the largest department in each of the high schools is the special education department.
I guess in response to critics of that: No. 1, if it's right for kids, we still ought to be doing it.
Now, we could say, "Well, back in the 1960s, nobody did, so what's the big deal?" But there were an awful lot of kids at that time who did not stay in school. Who perhaps were ignored in the back of the classroom. And we are truly attempting to match the instructional needs of kids with appropriate interventions.
So, I can understand the concerns and yeah, sure, if we wiped out special ed, there'd be a whole lot of classrooms available. But, No. 1, we can't; and No. 2, it's not a good idea to do so; and No. 3, we wouldn't do so. Philosophically, I couldn't argue, "Let's go back to the days before special services were provided for the kids who needs them." So it's a reality that we deal with. Wishing for something to disappear isn't going to make it disappear.
I think, yes, we do need to look at are there better ways of providing the service to these students in the regular classroom than through pull-out programs that require rooms. I think we'll always continue having that challenge. But our space crunch isn't going to be solved by saying, "Let's put everybody back in the regular classroom and use those other classrooms."
TH:Another facilities question. Do our schools all need to be air-conditioned?
JB:I think the short answer is yes. But the longer answer, why I think so.
We have summer school programs going on in at least three-fourths of the schools this summer. Do we survive without air conditioning? Sure. There are weeks in the fall that are hot and we survive.
I guess I just think when I see kids sweating and sticking to desks for a month in the fall and sometimes in the spring and in the summer. And I think we're going to have to look at expanding summer opportunities for kids.
Perhaps talking about year-round school is threatening and scary, but the fact is research shows that there is a learning loss over the summer. And if we're concerned about student achievement and if we're going to have any hope of meeting the No Child Left Behind achievement expectations, we're not just going to be able to say, "Hey, they're ours from last August to early June," and assume that, "OK, we can catch them up again and move them forward in the time we have with them starting in the fall." It isn't realistic. That's obviously going to be a community conversation.
There are, I'm sure, going to people who think air-conditioning is a frill, but I don't know too many people who go to dentists' offices or doctors' offices or banks that are not air-conditioned. Is it that our teachers have a higher tolerance or looser clothing? I don't know what it is about school as a place of business that would say in the 21st century, "We don't need to look at climate control." And happily, we're doing it.
TH:How is the decline in Holy Family Catholic School system enrollment affecting public school enrollment and resources?
JB:We've monitored that for the last several years and in fact, as we've had conversations with Holy Family Catholic School officials, they're sort of giving us a heads-up on the possibility that as they proceed through this restructuring, we would be further affected.
Our growth, or the growth we're experiencing in enrollment this year, was not due exclusively to transfers from the Catholic school system. We'll be anxious to see what next year's enrollment looks like, but we are seeing new families move into the community.
But having said that, there has been an impact, particularly in some of our schools that we can trace to transfers from the Catholic school system. It has challenged us to provide space to buildings that are already crowded.
We've got, as has been made public, classrooms in spaces that we shouldn't really have classrooms. At Irving next year, we're talking about five sections of kindergarten in three classrooms, so we're doubling up.
I'd say the impact has been to further exacerbate what has already a space crunch in many of our schools, part of which we created ourselves, I'll be the first to admit, by implementing all-day kindergarten. But again, it was the right thing to do. It was long overdue and we really are seeing improvement.
TH:With you background in curriculum, I'm interested in where the district is now with the expeditionary learning program. It's been about 10 years now.
JB:I was involved from the very beginning of the discussions, sort of creating our own definition of what this is, because the only thing that existed was a grant proposal that our then- superintendent, Diana Lam, had written. From the very beginning, I think we recognized that what it is in essence is a model for engaged learning.
A lot of the furor that centered around expeditionary learning in its early days was, in my mind, due to the fact that it was brought to us by sort of an outsider. An outsider who also happened to be a woman and sort of a pushy woman. And the fact that it had a name.
I think if we had done many of the elements in expeditionary learning without giving it a name, there'd be no trouble, because many of the elements that are found in Expeditionary Learning are already present in good classrooms across the country.
So where we are right now with it is we have some schools implementing specific elements of it. Some schools that have been further into it and have backed off somewhat from it. And some schools committed to the philosophy but not necessarily to all of the procedural elements.
For example, one of the things our schools have found challenging is the concept of looping. That there is research that shows that continuity is important for the kids. By having a child move with his teacher from first grade to second grade, the teacher knows the kids and doesn't have to back up and reassess in the fall.
But with so many curricular and assessment demands at each grade level, that's been a real challenge. Some of the schools that had been doing looping have backed off and said, "That really doesn't work for us right now. We need first-grade teachers to sort of be specialists in what it is they're working with kids in the area of first grade math or first grade reading."
TH:To some extent, looping expects a lot more out of the teacher, not only the students.
JB:Absolutely.
TH:Is the problem resistance among the teachers?
JB:I would say - I don't know if resistance may be too strong a word, but certainly a frustration. Especially when we continue to try to strengthen our reading program and build in more elements and we're implementing a new math curriculum next year.
I think that our teachers perhaps feel that they can't be as good at doing what they should be doing with kids because each year they're essentially relearning a new curriculum.
TH:You've been in this job a year, including half a year as interim superintendent. What keeps you awake at night?
JB:Right now, the whole timeline for the middle school probably weighs most heavily on my mind.
We've made a very visible commitment and reiterated that commitment about a thousand times that we're going to have a new middle school open in the fall of 2005. That's going to require no resting in a timeline that targets that completion date.
The other piece... I mentioned this how many times. The No Child Left Behind requirements still continue to boggle my mind. I truly believe in the mantra of No Child Left Behind, but I struggle with some of the definitions. It's sort of like is this a Lake Woebegone expectation that all children will be proficient by the year 2013 or 2014. So I struggle when we talk about our most challenged learners.
TH:If there was one thing, probably besides this No Child Left Behind, but if there was one thing you could change about your job right now, what might it be?
JB:This might be wishful thinking, but a little bit more opportunity for reflection and long-range planning.
I've sort of been doing the curriculum director's job this year and the assistant superintendent's job and learning this job.
I think that the staff additions that the board approved will help me. Because I do think I can contribute to the district by being able to keep an eye down the road rather than watching for the potholes right in front of the vehicle.
I think one of my strengths is the ability to take bits of information coming from all different directions and sort of synthesize and make sense out of that. It's something I like doing.
But this year, somebody's had to respond to the parent who calls and complains about X, Y or Z. I've tried to do a reasonably good job with that. I think I hung up on only one or two people this year. But people have been patient and cooperative.
TH:Many folks in the community still don't really know you. What would be an interesting fact about John Burgart that most people wouldn't know?
JB:Oh, dear. An interesting fact? I've never really shared with even most of the staff within the district - and certainly not with the community - my own personal background.
I think in many respects, I would be seen as an at-risk student. Not necessarily academically, but the oldest of six children whose mother dies at age 30 and whose father goes off. Was raised by a widowed grandparent. I lived in a home that didn't have an indoor toilet until I was in college.
I have overcome with wonderful family support. Despite that background, I feel that I was raised in a family that valued education and had wonderful extended family support, not just for me but for my siblings as well.
I can understand where a lot of families are in our community. That things weren't given to me easily. I just think that that helps me with empathy as I work with families who struggle in our own community.
TH:So there's hope.
JB:There is hope. Yeah.
Additional conversation with John Burgart