'Beginning of the Alonso era'

The Baltimore Sun

In his first two weeks on the job, Andres Alonso has established a hands-on leadership style that distinguishes him from previous chief executive officers of the Baltimore school system.

From now on, no principal is appointed without a personal meeting with him. No long-term suspension or expulsion receives his approval until he is briefed on the situation. No contract is sent to the school board without his review.

Alonso, the former deputy chancellor in New York City, has pledged to visit each of Baltimore's 180 schools in the next year. He replies to all of his e-mail himself, rather than passing the task off to an assistant.

"There's no doubt in my mind who's in charge," said school board member Robert Heck, praising the new schools chief's "remarkable" attention to detail.

While deciding whether to leave New York for Baltimore, he was more concerned about the autonomy he would be granted than the money he would receive, Alonso said in a recent interview.

In most school systems around the country, the board of education appoints the CEO or superintendent, and that person is supposed to run the day-to-day operation without interference from board members.

But theory and reality don't always match, and Alonso -- who has a Harvard law degree -- insisted on a clause in his contract spelling out his authority.

The contract states that individual board members agree not to direct Alonso or anyone on his staff "regarding the management of [the school system] or the solution of specific problems." They agree to refer all complaints to him.

Alonso is being paid a base salary of $230,000. That's slightly more than interim CEO Charlene Cooper Boston and CEO Bonnie S. Copeland earned before him but less than superintendents in Montgomery, Prince George's and Baltimore counties.

"Financial terms were never an issue," he said. "I needed to be convinced that I would be able to be effective. In order to be effective, I needed trust from the board."

Board members made no secret that they hired Alonso to shake things up. Otherwise, they could have hired Boston, a longtime city schools administrator who applied for the permanent position.

Alonso's hands-on style was evident Tuesday night at his first school board meeting as he took notes on a laptop about the concerns expressed during public comment.

Opening remarks by board Chairman Brian D. Morris were briefer than usual. "It's the beginning of the Alonso era," Morris said, "and we're very, very excited about it."

Alonso begged to differ.

"It is the Baltimore era," he said.

But the new CEO is clearly changing how business is done.

During summer meetings, the board usually enters into dozens of contracts and appoints dozens of employees for the coming academic year. At Tuesday's meeting, it was scheduled to vote on 38 procurement items.

Alonso had 27 of the contracts pulled from the agenda because he had not had time to adequately review them. He said he wants to understand the reason for each contract and how it relates to the system's overall mission of educating children.

"I don't ever sign anything unless I understand the purpose," he said. "I want to know things are happening for a reason and the priorities are there."

While the board usually appoints several new principals each July, only two were appointed Tuesday. Alonso said he met with one of them, and the other had completed the selection process before he started as CEO. He said he will interview all future candidates.

"There's nothing more important than who is the principal of a school," he said. He has said he is committed to making sure that all schools have excellent principals and then to giving principals more autonomy.

Parents and faculty members at City College magnet high school had been planning a protest at Tuesday's meeting over the principal's decision to involuntarily transfer two teachers and fire a third, all three of whom led the school's union chapter. But before the meeting, Alonso intervened, and the three teachers were given their jobs back.

Alonso declined to comment on the specifics of the situation, except to say: "I will always be responsive to parent concerns. Sometimes they will be pleased with the outcome. Sometimes they will not. What they will never be able to say is that I'm not on top of it."

On Wednesday night, Alonso attended the first of five forums around the city designed for him to meet parents. Again, he took notes, and at the end of the meeting, he summarized for audience members what he heard as their major tasks for him.

"Changing the way in which we treat parents," he said. "[Making] communication simpler, timely and on point."

He told the parents that they will be seeing a lot more of him. Not only does he want to visit schools during the instructional day, he said, but he also plans to attend PTA meetings at night to ensure that the organizations are working and that parents are being treated with respect.

"Many parents legitimately feel they're powerless in impacting what happens in the schools," he said.

In New York, Alonso said, he visited more than 200 schools in a year. He likes to start at an elementary school and then visit the middle and high schools that graduates of the elementary school attend. The goal is to figure out where along the way the system is breaking down -- or where, as he says, the "bleeding" begins.

A 50-year-old bachelor who recently moved into temporary quarters near the Inner Harbor, Alonso said he's been waking up every morning at 5 to read and reply to his e-mail. He said he sorts all his messages into electronic folders, leaving nothing unattended in the general inbox.

He arrives at work between 6:30 and 7 a.m., often staying long into the evening. He allows reporters to contact him directly, rather than channeling all interview requests through the system's office of public relations, and he has asked his staff to brief him on all news media requests.

Much of his first week on the job was spent behind closed doors, meeting one on one with members of his new administration. Many observers say he needs to figure out whom he can trust before he can begin to delegate more.

Alonso said he's found "a lot of great people working incredibly hard." But as an outsider to the system, he said, it's "just logical" to get to know all the details of the organization he's been chosen to lead.

"I'm talking to everybody and getting information," he said. "I'm keeping a very close eye on operations."

sara.neufeld@baltsun.com

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