This is the third in a three-part series about decisions made by Alexandria Public Schools Superintendent Morton Sherman during his first two years as superintendent. Two months, dozens of interviews and 774 pages of documents acquired via Freedom of Information requests revealed details about upheaval in the central office and Sherman’s long-time use of outside consultants. This series is also being published by the Alexandria Gazette. Here is Part 1 and Part 2.

By Paige Winfield Cunningham

Alexandria employees announcing their retirement have multiplied in the last 18 months as Superintendent Morton Sherman tries to reconfigure a district that has consistently failed state and federal standards.

Half of the upper-level directors at the central office of the Alexandria City Public Schools have taken their leave — some voluntarily, some not — from the central office since early last year. Of the 28 central office directors listed on a Jan. 2009 flow chart, 13 have left permanently, 1 is on “extended” leave and one plans to retire in February.

The finance director and half of his staff are gone. The communications director is gone. The director of student services is gone. Two of the four assistant superintendents are gone.

“The superintendent’s tactics are kind of strange,” said Georgia Brown, a 36-year ACPS employee who retired a few years ago but says she stays in touch with former co-workers. “There have been instances when directors, (assistant) superintendents were told they needed to leave and on the outside it looked like they left of their own free will.”

Margaret Byess — one of the two remaining assistant superintendents who now oversee the entire operations side for the district — attributes the mass exodus to employees who weren’t ready to work harder.

“There was a lot of work to be done on the financial services side,” Byess said. “You will find us here at 10, 11 at night. We put in 10-, 12-hour days because there’s so much to do and not everybody’s cut out for that.”

But former employees say the environment had become toxic. Betty Shanklin, one of five employees who left the nine-staff finance office between May 2009 and June 2010, says she decided to end her 20-year ACPS career early when the firings first began.

“In my opinion, between Margaret and Mort we have just gone downhill,” Shanklin said. “The morale everywhere is bad. People don’t have confidence in the fact that they have a job.”

The trend has extended to teachers as well, more of whom hired this year than normal. In 2009, 36 professional staff retired, according to Delbert Wilson, president of the Alexandria Retired Teachers’ Association. This year, that number jumped to 54 — an increase Wilson says is significant.

“There are so many changes going on, people said I don’t want to deal with it, this is a good time to leave,” Wilson said. “A lot of people have been fired and let go (at the central office). People are being overworked in some ways and some of the upper level people are saying this isn’t worth the effort.”

Sherman has sent significant changes down the pipeline since he left his superintendent position in Tenafly, New Jersey to oversee Alexandria City Public Schools in 2008. He eliminated two of the original four assistant superintendent positions. He hired a new director of strategic initiatives. He expanded the district’s two middle schools into five middle schools.

But perhaps the most telling indication of Sherman’s priorities lies in two new directors he’s hired: one to oversee a curriculum redesign and one to manage the influx of new outside consultants.

John Brown joined ACPS last November to manage the creation of a new curriculum school officials say will, for the first time, take lesson plans beyond expectations laid out by the state’s Standard of Learning tests.

Sherman also recruited Betsi Shays, wife of former Connecticut Congressman Chris Shays, to lead a new “Alliance for Learning and Leading” that’s housed in the top floor of George Washington Middle School. Shays signs off on contracts with dozens of other new consultants hired last year. She’s working closely with Fran Prolman — another consultant who took nearly $109,000 to hold teacher trainings using the materials “Skillful Teacher” and “Skillful Leader.”

Shays acts as an umbrella over the new emphasis on professional development that’s based on a five-year strategic plan approved in March 2009, says Cathy David, deputy superintendent for curriculum and instruction support.

“We are really trying to raise the level of professional learning and align the professional learning with the goals of the strategic plan,” David said.

While top officials say the changes are bringing Alexandria into the 21st Century for the first time, employees who were let go or forced to reapply for their jobs tell a different story.

Late last spring, all middle school secretaries and administrators, along with some central office employees were told they had to reapply for their jobs, said Gina Miller, president of the Education Association of Alexandria, which is a labor union representing teachers. On June 23 — seven days before the end of the fiscal year — 12 employees were told they wouldn’t have a permanent job after June 30 and offered a temporary contract.

Five of these employees have filed complaints with the United States Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, according to a September report by the Alexandria Gazette Packet.

Former ACPS accountant Wayne Kee chose not to reapply after he learned his job would be expanded to include many more responsibilities. He’d worked for the district for 10 years and believed the upgraded position would include more responsibilities than one person could handle.

“I’d be doing the textbook inventory, the student activity funds and the CIP and no one person could do that,” Kee said. “(Before) you had one person doing textbooks by themselves.”

Other employees who did want to stay at ACPS accepted the district’s offer of a 60- day contract to earn their same salary. Louis Johnson, another accountant, took the temporary offer after he learned he’d have to reapply in late May, interviewed the third week of June and was told he was out of a permanent job.

But when the 60-day contract was up in September, the employees were offered a 90-day contract to earn $13 an hour — about half of what Johnson had been earning. Because he would also have lost his health insurance coverage, Johnson decided to retire from ACPS and is currently searching for another job.

As the central office was restructured and oversight became more centralized under two assistant superintendents — Margaret Byess and Cathy David — instead of four, Johnson felt as though things became more secretive and controlled.

“Between (Margaret Byess) and (Morton Sherman) they started doing whatever they wanted to do,” Johnson said. “Certain things became hush hush. We were kind of shut out … everything had to go back through Margaret Byess’ office before it was sent out.”

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