At an end-of-the-year meeting in June, Cassandra W. Jones, the Baltimore City school system's chief academic officer, walked into Canton Middle School to deliver the ultimatum: Teachers would have to take a month of summer training or risk being transferred to another school.

A teacher with 35 years' experience raised her hand to ask a question.

"Jones yelled, 'This is my meeting. There will be no questions,'" said another teacher, Daryl Walsh. "It was so insulting. I walked out of the room. There is a real lack of respect for people as professionals."

For many, the tense meeting in Canton typified Jones' style.

Since arriving in Baltimore 15 months ago to be one of the school system's top leaders, she has upset principals and teachers who see her as committed but dictatorial. Matched with schools chief Carmen V. Russo -- viewed by some as too removed from day-to-day operations -- educators say they are concerned that the progress of the district could stall.

Baltimore educators do not quibble with the goals of Russo or Jones. The system's five years of reform, the last two under Russo, have paid off. Test scores are up, promotion standards are tougher and smaller high schools are opening.

Russo, who is a top candidate for a high-level job in Florida, has focused on high school reform and raising money for that effort, leaving Jones to make decisions about academics.

The result, these educators say, has been a series of impulsive and ill-advised decisions that have diverted teachers from teaching and burdened principals with unnecessary paperwork.

Under immense pressure to help failing children and improve test scores, teachers and principals say that some of the decisions they see as unnecessarily meddlesome are driving away talented teachers and hurting morale.

Relations grew so bad that in September, about 50 principals and assistant principals staged a silent protest at a school board meeting as their union leader aired their grievances.

A blunt, no-frills administrator who can sound like a preacher when speaking to an audience of parents, Jones has not been reluctant to exercise her authority. While some of the new procedures she has ordered may seem minor, their cumulative effect has been to demoralize and distract staff, educators say.

"You can't micromanage a classroom, and that is what the system is trying to do," said Linda Eberhart, a star teacher whose fifth-graders obtained the highest math scores in Maryland two years in a row.

The problem, said Baltimore Teachers Union President Marietta English, is the system's "disregard for [teacher's] needs, the disregard for their voice."

Jones says if she has offended anyone, then perhaps she needs to work on her communication skills.

Among the issues:

Principals received their budgets three months late in June, delaying the hiring of teachers and giving staff and parents less of a say in how their school is run.

The report card format was changed in November and again in February, requiring hours of extra work by teachers, and disrupting lesson preparation.

And important quarterly tests, which help determine whether a child is promoted to the next grade, sometimes ar- rived at schools weeks late or with grammatical errors.

"As [the last school] year progressed, there were more and more mandates that came down that affected teachers at all levels and affected teachers to the point where it was difficult to teach," Eberhardt said.

Private concerns

Concerns about top management have reached educational leaders, who say privately they are concerned. School board President Patricia L. Welch had a private meeting with principals in September to allow them to air their grievances.

"We are very aware of the concerns around academic issues, and we are attending to them," Welch said.

Russo acknowledges mistakes. But, she said, the occasional misstep should be viewed in the context of the challenges facing the district and its accomplishments. The majority of Baltimore's first-graders are now scoring above the national average in reading, a victory for any urban system.

"There are over 12,000 employees, a budget of $900 million and an aggressive reform plan laid out by the board," she said. "I don't think anyone, starting with the board, reasonably thinks that every decision you make is going to be perfect."

Jones said some of the issues that have arisen in the past year, including problems with school budgets and the quarterly tests, were not her responsibility. But she acknowledged that if staff view her as autocratic, then she must try to "work harder on communication."

Administrators say that since Jones arrived, she seems to be the one making many decisions while Russo concentrates on high school reform. Russo brought in $20 million in foundation grants for high school reform last winter.

"I don't see Russo's stamp on anything," said an administrator at the district's North Avenue headquarters who asked not to be identified for fear her job could be jeopardized. "I feel Russo has checked out. Jones is really running the show internally."

Without Russo's early involvement in some issues, Jones has occasionally passed along an edict to principals -- such as reducing the teachers' lunch periods -- only to have it reversed by the chief executive officer.

'Impulsive quality'

Concerns about the district's leadership also have been raised by advocates and educational leaders outside the system.

Education consultant and former school board member, Kalman R. Hettleman said, "While Dr. Jones is bold, there appears to be an impulsive quality in which the school system is asked to jump too precipitously without adequate planning."

When Russo, 66, took over in July 2000, she was the third system head in three years. Her mandate was to take the continuing reform effort to middle and high schools as well as enforce tough new promotion standards that resulted in 20,000 children being required to repeat a grade.

In suburban school districts, such large-scale changes would be carried out over a number of years. But the city school board's urgency has forced leaders to accelerate their work.

To assist her, Russo hired Jones, 51, an administrator from the Philadelphia school system whose background was in physical education and curriculum, in August last year.

In interviews with more than three dozen educators, many said they are dismayed by the decisions made without staff imput.

Most principals were unwilling to have their names used, fearing retaliation, but they pointed to a number of poor moves, some of which administrators acknowledge.

For instance, elementary principals had to prepare class schedules twice for this school year -- once during the summer and again during the first week of school. Administrators had initially shortened the teachers' lunch period to 30 minutes without giving them a voice in the decision, a violation of the teachers' contract. When challenged, the district reversed its decision.

Report card changes

In another instance, Jones decided to change the report card format in November last year and again in February so that the subjects and grading system were in compliance with new board standards for passing.

The switch meant teachers were forced to recalculate grades and copy over comments, which Eberhardt said took 12 hours for each teacher.

Jones defended the action, saying that without the change there would have been confusion in June over who should be promoted. "The teachers were given two days of professional development to do" the report card," Jones said.

In retrospect, Russo said, she probably would have made the report card changes more slowly. A third new report card was in the works, but Russo canceled it.

Another move that drew criticism occurred in mid-July, when parents received a letter informing them their children should do summer reading from a list of books. When students showed up at Enoch Pratt library branches, the librarians scrambled to get the reading lists from the school system and to find the books, some of which weren't in the Pratt's collection.

Jones acknowledged that the reading lists did not get to schools until after school had ended for the summer. But, she said, the lists arrived soon after, in time for students who were attending summer school. Several principals dispute that.

In August, principals were furious when they learned that two academic coaches at each school -- hired earlier in the summer to support and train teachers -- earned more than some assistant principals and principals with far more responsibility. For instance, an academic coach with a doctorate could earn up to $78,696, while an elementary principal might start at $70,335.

"Our people feel as though they're not valued and they're not respected," said Sheila Kolman, president of the Public School Administrators and Supervisors Association of Baltimore City.

'I had to leave'

Veronica Brown, former principal of Lake Clifton/Eastern High School, decided to leave the district just weeks before school started this fall. She said it became clear that the school community -- parents, teachers and students -- would not have a say in how their high school will be broken up into several schools as part of a citywide reform of high schools.

"I knew I had to leave; ... if you don't have a participatory management style, then I am going to be uncomfortable," she said. "When you don't ask what is going on, then I don't think you can make very good decisions."

Russo has been trying to do damage control. She met for 2 1/2 hours with principals and has increased the size of a principals' advisory board to give them greater access to her.

"I think communication is never perfect," Russo said. "You always have to do more of it."

For several Canton Middle School teachers, the Jones ultimatum was the last straw. Walsh said the message was delivered so late that most teachers had already taken summer jobs or made vacation plans. A 15-year teacher, Walsh headed for Baltimore County and had six job offers in a matter of days. He now has a leadership teaching position in a middle school there.

Donna Birenbaum, who had taught at Canton for 14 years, was at the same meeting.

"I found her style to be offensive and aggressive. I didn't feel she wanted a dialogue of any kind," Birenbaum said of Jones.

Jones did not agree that the teachers were handed an ultimatum.

"They had an option to stay if they want to be part of that [professional development] or transfer," she said.

She also said she stayed about an hour after her presentation to answer questions. The school system compromised by moving the training to the afternoon, Jones said, so teachers would be available to teach summer school in the morning.

"The district listened, and we responded quickly," Jones said.

'Very surprising'

Jones said that she is taken aback by the perception that staff members believe they aren't being heard, considering the number of schools she visits. "The amount of e-mails I get from principals and teachers, I find that very surprising," Jones said. "You can say anything to me. You just can't use profanity."

Even among those who are very critical of her, Jones is uniformly praised by administrators and teachers for her commitment and willingness to take action.

"I think she has a very aggressive style in terms of seeing a need and working very diligently toward that need. She is a very involved person," said Charlene Cooper Boston, a high-level administrator who recently left to become superintendent of Wicomico County's schools.

"She is very committed to children."

Russo declined to comment on Jones' management style.

Board president Welch said: "Right now I support the current structure in the system because I believe that the people sitting in those chairs have the concerns of the system at heart."