Spend an hour with Superintendent Stuart Berger and he'll tell you this has been "a wonderful year, quieter by design" than the last one. He'll say that he's mellowed, that he accepts defeat more easily and that he likes what he sees in the schools.

"I'm surprised at how well it's gone," Dr. Berger says of his second year in charge of the Baltimore County schools. "I don't think we've said 'Peace at any cost,' but we haven't wanted any big fights."

Drive down the hill from Dr. Berger's office on North Charles Street, however, and you'll get a different message. There, tacked to a telephone pole, is a small hand-lettered sign: "Fire Berger." A few blocks south on Charles Street, there's another: "Berger Must Go."

Dr. Berger's upbeat assessment and the terse messages from the disgruntled are hallmarks of his era. If anything is clear about the Berger days, it is that little is clear.

Dr. Berger is upholding his image as "a change agent" with a fiery nature, although he and his critics have been calmer lately. There are fewer radio talk-show tirades by his enemies, but rumors still fly and skirmishes erupt regularly.

Absent is last year's furor, when Dr. Berger left the June school board meeting through a window with a police escort, rather than by the front door where parents and teachers angered by demotions of veteran administrators and the sudden % 5/8 reassignment of hundreds of disabled students awaited him.

Some observers say Dr. Berger's critics are tired -- discouraged because their outcries have not brought relief from his fast-paced agenda or in-your-face style. Others say there are fewer critics because there is less to upset them.

A recent parents' forum sponsored by County Council Chairman William A. Howard IV drew only 100 people to Loch Raven High School, about 40 of whom expressed their unhappiness about county schools.

Few of their issues were new -- class sizes, school board accountability, watered-down curricula, less emphasis on basics. Many of the speakers wondered where everyone else was. "This place should be full," one said.

Dr. Berger puts it this way: "There's a hard-core group of people -- about 10 to 20 percent of the community -- who are against me. And there's another 10 to 20 percent who would fight to the death to keep the changes going. The others are in the middle."

Dr. Berger recalled one woman who recently told him she was a "mute supporter."

"All my supporters are mute," he said, laughing. "You cannot be for Stuart Berger; that's not politically correct. But, you can be against Stuart Berger; that's politically correct."

Still, some are complimentary.

"There are a lot of interesting, positive things that have happened with Stuart Berger," said Leonard Duffy, the board's first community liaison. "He's really forced the implementation of some of the things the community said it wanted in the Great Expectations for 2000," a plan developed during the tenure of Dr. Berger's predecessor, Robert Y. Dubel.

Pressure from public

The liaison's position itself was a concession to Dr. Berger's critics. Under public pressure, the board reluctantly created the job on the recommendation of an independent task force that looked into the handling of two controversies -- the transfer of disabled students from special education centers and the involuntary transfer and demotion of 40 administrators.

Board president Alan M. Leberknight convened the task force last summer after that fiery board meeting at which his predecessor, Rosalie Hellman, shut the doors on an angry crowd.

In a critical report, the panel concluded that "inclusion" of special education students was "too much too soon" and that the personnel moves "created an atmosphere of intimidation and fear of retaliation."

Though Dr. Berger has been uncharacteristically quiet about the task force, he said in a recent interview that he "totally disagreed" with its conclusions. While he understood why the panel was created, he said, its work slowed down some of his.

But Calvin Disney, the board's vice president, praises the task force chaired by attorney Sanford V. Teplitzky.

"I think things have gone better this year, and that is principally because of the Teplitzky task force," he said. "We have fully implemented or implemented in spirit [its] recommendations, and the front-line people have tried very hard to make things work."

Task forces and liaisons have not changed some minds.

"It's as bad as ever," said Shirley Giberson, an outspoken Berger critic who organized a parents' rights group to oust him and several board members in March 1993. "He has shown no more competence than in the beginning. He's a little more muzzled, but he does pop up."

Ray Suarez, president of the Teachers Association of Baltimore County, decried the lack of cooperation and Dr. Berger's unconcealed hostility toward the union.

"I wish TABCO had been allowed to be a more collaborative partner in the last two years," Mr. Suarez said. "I never anticipated this degree of chaos, this degree of animosity. There is . . . a great deal of fear, a great lack of confidence by the public."

'Wide-open atmosphere'

At least one administrator sees it differently. "One of the things that I have really enjoyed these past two years . . . is the wide-open atmosphere," said Robert Kemmery, principal of Eastern Vocational High School in Essex.

"When you wanted to do something, there used to be a whole process you had to move through from concept to implementation, and by the time you got approval, the concept might no longer be valid," he explained. "Now, you can go from concept to implementation at a much faster pace."

Although Dr. Berger is often targeted as the bad guy, he has enjoyed the backing of the board. And his changes have followed the board's "vision statement," a plan for adapting the schools to the changing culture of the county.

"I think the board is as solid behind Stuart as it was behind Bob Dubel," Mr. Disney said. "No one has ever suggested that his contract be terminated or bought out."

But Dr. Berger said that his support may be eroding: "I think last year I had the support of all. This year I think it's clear I don't."

There's no doubt the board is in transition. In November, Gov. William Donald Schaefer appointed two new board members, choosing Mary Katherine Scheeler and Mr. Teplitzky over the community's recommendations, including the incumbent Hilda Hillman.

This year the lame duck governor will have four more appointments -- two for present members whose terms expire July 1 and two for new seats created by the legislature.

"The fate of the school system lies in William Donald Schaefer's hands," said Dr. Berger. If he does not reappoint incumbents Dunbar Brooks and Paul Cunningham, the governor will have replaced a majority of the board that hired him, Dr. Berger noted.

"I cannot imagine a scenario in which I would not serve this term out," he said, referring to his four-year contract. But he conceded that a different board could jeopardize his chances for four more years.

"I like this job. I'd like to serve two terms," said Dr. Berger, who, despite tumultuous tenures in Frederick County and Wichita, Kan., is beginning his 20th year as a superintendent.

Rapid changes

Though it has slowed recently, the overall pace of change during Dr. Berger's tenure has been unprecedented for Baltimore County. And each innovation has brought corresponding concerns.

* Inclusion of special education students. The sudden transfer of hundreds of the county's most severely disabled children to neighborhood schools galvanized the anti-Berger movement last spring.

Dr. Berger himself said it was "the biggest miscalculation of my career" in an interview in "The Executive Educator." And the task force concluded that the program, though well-intentioned, was

"ill-planned and poorly communicated."

The success of inclusion is difficult to measure. Some parents are thrilled, others are unhappy and were forced to fight for programs and services their children received in the centers.

"The fact of the matter is that inclusion is a classroom by LTC classroom decision," said Michael Riley, northwest area superintendent. Like most reforms, inclusion is judged close to home, he said. It comes down to "what your kid's second-grade teacher is like."

* Magnet schools. Among the most visible of Dr. Berger's innovations, magnet programs began in seven high schools this year. Seven more will be in place by September.

With specialized curricula, magnet programs were designed to draw students from crowded schools, offer students and parents choices and encourage voluntary desegregation of the county's most racially imbalanced schools.

The magnet programs will add at least 2,500 more seats to county schools -- 1,500 at two former technical schools that are now comprehensive high schools and the rest at two schools that administrators decided to reopen since Dr. Berger arrived: Cromwell Valley Elementary School in Towson and Sudbrook Middle School in the Pikesville area.

Although magnets have widespread support, some question their impact. "Magnet schools are doing well. If that means that neighborhood schools are suffering, that's wrong," said County Councilman Charles A. Dutch Ruppersberger III.

Magnet popularity

Dr. Berger and his administrators are victims of magnet popularity. Two of the most well-known successes are Cromwell and Sudbrook, which had more applicants than they could accept. Murky admissions policies and federal guidelines accompanying desegregation money the magnets are receiving further complicated the issue.

Some rejected students and their parents complained that the schools discriminated by race or neighborhood. No white children who attend predominantly black Hillendale Elementary, for example, were accepted into the high-tech Cromwell program because county officials said that would have increased the percentage of black youngsters at their neighborhood school -- a violation of federal regulations.

Eventually Dr. Berger soothed angry Hillendale parents with promises of more money for the school and a magnet program of their own in 1995. At Sudbrook, Dr. Berger rewarded the most persistent parents by allowing their children into the school.

* Site-based management. Dr. Berger has shifted administrative responsibilities from central offices to local principals -- arguing that it will create schools that are more responsive to their communities. Results are mixed.

"Because we are new at it, we're making some mistakes," said Dr. Riley. "We're turning over some stuff that only increases the workload," such as time-consuming budgets.

Some parents complain that principals have become dictatorial -- moving and transferring staff members, reconfiguring classes and bringing in new programs without involving them or explaining their decisions.

Critical teachers and parents say that some principals are motivated by what Dr. Berger wants, or what they think he wants.

As a result, many teachers say principals discourage and even punish differences of opinion among staff members.

Other principals say they aren't worried about crossing the superintendent. "I don't lose any sleep over whether Stuart Berger is going to take me out," said Eastern's Mr. Kemmery, who has spent 18 years in county schools.

But Parkville Middle School teacher Dorothy Dowling, an outspoken Berger critic, says "close to 90 percent of all teachers are afraid" to speak up to administrators, parents and even to other teachers. "I've never seen such fear."

Mr. Kemmery has an explanation: "Our teachers are used to a culture that when you were assigned to a school, that school was their position. In comes a superintendent who says, you don't own your assignment."

Likewise, decisions were made "top down," with principals being able to pass off unpopular policies as the work of central office administrators, he explained.

"There's a comfort level in that. You're taking people out of their comfort zones."