Rapid changes are just the first step in an overhaul of U-46

Few would disagree that Jose Torres inherited a mess when he was named superintendent of Illinois' second-largest school district.

Yet Torres' almost unbridled approach to changing the bureaucracy that makes up Elgin Area School District U-46 is attempting change very quickly in a district with 41,000 students and 53 schools that spans 11 towns and three counties.

It's clear the district's issues will take bold action to clear up:

• Half of its schools failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress on school report cards last year

• It's in its fourth year of defending itself in a costly racial bias lawsuit that stemmed from a change in attendance boundaries in 2004

• And it's still smarting from the tenure of its former superintendent, who left town abruptly with an undisclosed illness after netting a $60,000 raise, having cost taxpayers more than $500,000 in her final year.

On top of these problems, with more than 40 percent of its students Hispanic and nearly 20 percent new to English, U-46 is one of the most diverse districts in the suburbs.

Torres came out swinging after taking the district's helm in July. The two biggest punches came at the end of January, when he informed seven of the district's most powerful administrators, in charge of staffing, curriculum and students services, that their positions would be eliminated by June. The next day he told Larkin High School's principal and 12 department heads, along with Canton Middle School's principal and vice principal, that they'd be out at the end of the school year.

"I would have liked to make even more changes, but this is all I can handle at this time," Torres said.

Education experts say this approach is a double-edged sword - promising yet potentially harmful.

"Getting rid of the principals is generally seen as a logical first step in really executing improvement," said Tracy Dell'Angela, spokeswoman for the Consortium on Chicago School Research. "Our research has found consistently that leadership makes or breaks whether a school succeeds."

Still, she warned, "there's no guarantee. Schools do not improve unless the critical piece is there. If you do not put in a good team, you just get more of the same."

Larkin, in Elgin, and Canton, in Streamwood, had both faced severe academic problems, failing to meet state standards in reading and math for the past several years.

Additionally, Torres said, both schools needed a "culture change." He refused to get into specifics, saying it was a personnel matter.

Larkin, in particular, has slid a bit from its perch as the elite high school in the district in the 1980s and early '90s.

Last January, Larkin social studies teachers filed a union grievance accusing the district of inadequately training them to conduct a computer training session designed to increase scores on the Prairie State Achievement Exam. Teachers said targeting their classes diminished the value of their subjects.

Last spring, Larkin High School music supporters launched a campaign to keep Damon Carlson, the school's choral director, claiming he was unjustly asked to resign.

This fall, a senior was charged with aggravated battery, accused of punching dean Richard LeBron in the face during school. Weeks later, LeBron was punched again.

The next school day after the housecleaning at Larkin, Torres the outlined new staffing standards for U-46 schools.

The standards, designed to increase efficiency and academic performance, also aim to save U-46 about $900,000 next school year by "right-sizing," as he called it, various needs.

"I hope it's very clear now that this is an era of accountability," he told the seven-member board.

And if all that wasn't enough, Torres on Friday lowered the boom, calling for $17 million in reductions to keep books balanced in 2009-10. Cuts, he said, could include freezing the pay of administrators and non-union employees, continuing to restrict "discretionary funds" on supplies, reducing transportation costs by limiting field trips, and carefully examining staffing. He cited lagging state aid and an uncertainty as to what the federal bailout would mean for U-46,

"For the 2009/2010 budget," he wrote, "everything is on the table - including the table. We simply cannot spend more than our anticipated revenue."

These reductions will be made on top of earlier efforts aimed at reducing expenses by $4.4 million.

After the Daily Herald's initial story on the cuts at Larkin, the majority of the 84 comments posted on dailyherald.com were supportive of the move.

Stuckinelgin wrote: "Wow I'm amazed Torres is wielding his ax so swiftly. I figured he'd be as complacent with the problems as his predecessors. Apparently not so and I applaud him."

U-46's problems aren't isolated at either of the two schools, Barbara Radner, director of the Center for Urban Education at DePaul University, said. "Basically, what I really think you need to do is not be like Hamlet, but really need to get a number of people involved in looking at what have we done, what are the problems, what have we tried that didn't work," she said. "Sometimes, people throw out good stuff and good people when they're trying to have a renaissance. These are not isolated problems. They don't come with just people. It's a whole structure."

Teachers and administrators around the district, however, are reticent to offer opinions on the record, fearing they could be next to go. Other, more subtle changes have taken place over the past seven months.

During Torres' first week as superintendent, he set about meeting with chambers of commerce, school leaders and parent groups, reiterating his three broad goals of raising the academic bar, closing the achievement gap and cultivating relationships.

At the beginning of the school year, he wrote a letter to student dropouts, urging them to come back, and instituted a mentoring initiative for at-risk boys. In October, he issued a challenge for all students to get a library card. Elgin's Gail Borden Branch was so flush with requests, librarians said, that they had to issue temporary cards for a time.

In his first 90 days, he visited all 53 schools, and he recently set about a second round, with a focus on examining student data. These actions, Angela Ackmann of Elgin says, display a marked difference from those of former Superintendent Connie Neale, who was often more content to run things from behind her desk than out in the community.

"This is promising," said the Elgin High mother and Citizens Advisory Council member. "I think he's in a great position to help us, to start to bridge those distances."

Tim Davis, president of the 2,400-member Elgin Teachers' Association, said his concern over the Larkin cuts was "the impact on the community. The community at the school site and also the greater Larkin community."

As the school moves forward, Davis said, it's vital to "make sure teachers have an opportunity to be engaged in the conversation as new plans are made. That's critical."

Torres has insisted the cuts were not intended to send a message to any of the district's other struggling schools, but he made the changes with an eye toward "gathering the right people around me to do the right work."

"You can't say that Larkin was succeeding necessarily," school board President Ken Kaczynski said. "You can't say that any of our high schools are doing as well as they can be. I think it's more evidence of the urgency of the work that we're doing.

"As you evolve you have to look at different ways to fix problems. And this is certainly different for U-46. Right now people seem to be encouraged by that sense of urgency. And are supportive of bold steps. We'll see how it works out."

Torres hasn't always been able to make authoritative decisions with such ease. The first time he served as a superintendent in 2002, he lasted six months at the 5,700-student San Ysidro School District in California. The school board fired him, claiming his leadership style was problematic.

He moved to the Anne Arundel County Public Schools in Maryland, where he served as assistant superintendent from 2002 until 2005. In 2006, he moved to Chicago Public Schools, becoming instruction officer for Area 14, a West Side division of 14,000 predominantly black students.

In his two years in Chicago, Torres reduced class sizes and implemented teacher retention programs in Chicago's Auburn Gresham, Grand Crossing and Englewood neighborhoods.

Some have charged that Torres' bold moves in U-46 are much akin to the Chicago Public School method of "reconstituting" underperforming schools like Larkin and Canton. Chicago, along with schools in Philadelphia, Denver, Baltimore and Houston, have all used the measure, with varying degrees of success.

In the coming months, Torres will have much to prove.

"End the lawsuit? That would be nice," Lincoln Elementary parent Kim Anderson suggested. "And get a more positive impression of Elgin schools out there. And get those test scores up. And stay in the black."

She hopes Torres will be the one to tackle those goals. "This is such a huge step in such a different direction from what we're used to. But this is not going to be easy," she said.

The honeymoon stage between Torres and the U-46 community will inevitably end, board member Joyce Fountain reminds gently. But for now, she said, "You've got to enjoy that. You're going to need it to reflect on when things aren't going so great. ... You can't be an effective leader if everybody loves you all the time."

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Video</h2> <ul class="video"> <li><a href="/multimedia/?category=9&type=video&item=306">A chat with Jose Torres </a></li> </ul> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=272342">U-46 chief reflects on decisions, looks to future <span class="date">[2/16/09]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>