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Friday, March 7, 2008

Candidate Gary Norris Embraces Technology

By Zsombor Peter
Journal Staff Writer
    To talk to Gary Norris about educating today's youth is to talk about technology.
    A BlackBerry in every principal's hands. A laptop for every teacher. An electronic, interactive white board in every classroom.
    They're all innovations the veteran school superintendent brought to Florida's Sarasota County since arriving there four years ago. He would like to do the same in Albuquerque.
    Norris is one of six finalists to head Albuquerque Public Schools.
    Norris is quick to stress that no amount of technology ever could, or should, replace the teacher. He's added 30 hours to the school year in Sarasota to improve teacher training, largely for new technology.
    As the world in which children must live and compete changes, he says, so must the way they're taught.
    "If we want to raise student achievement, we have to recognize that students are learning differently than they did in the past," he said.
    Norris is also quick to insist that the BlackBerries, laptops and interactive white boards aren't just so many new bells and whistles. They're all put to the service of the district's main goals: improving student performance and closing the achievement gap, he said.
    To that end, Norris has wrapped it all up into his NeXt Generation Learning Plan, a five-year, $350 million program that calls for more technology, teacher training and high school reforms.
    Principals, for instance, use their BlackBerries to gauge teaching techniques during classroom visits. Teachers use their laptops for training. And the electronic white boards create a more active and engaging classroom for students.
    Local board and union members say it's made a genuine difference for the better since Norris unveiled it in 2005.
    Laura Benson, who left the Sarasota school board in November 2006, likened most attempts at school "reform" to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. But with NeXt Generation, she said, Norris has truly changed the way things are done in Sarasota.
    "It shakes things up," she said.
    Closing the achievement gap, said Barry Dubin, executive director of the Sarasota Classified/Teachers Association, "really and truly is a passion of his. It's something he eats, sleeps and drinks."
    But the past four years in Sarasota haven't all been smooth sailing for Norris.
    In 2005, the district over-projected the following year's enrollment by about 1,000 students, leading to the layoff of 84 employees at the end of that summer. Most were teachers' aides.
    Norris later apologized for not imposing a hiring freeze. He let the district keep hiring, he told the board, so as not to force class consolidations mid-year.
    Norris said he also worried about sending voters a mixed message that could have jeopardized an upcoming vote on extending a property tax increase for the district.
    Norris told the Journal the property taxes are paying for employees who will expand the district's services, like counselors and art teachers, not the kind of positions that got cut. In the end, he said, only about 15 employees who ended the last regular school year were not brought back the next.
    Still, some people felt duped; Norris insists the district never withheld any information. Benson called it "much ado about nothing."
    Even John Lewis, who left the board with Benson and was one of Norris' more vocal critics on budgetary matters, called the over-projection an honest mistake.
    Norris also took heat from the board and union for trying to push his NeXt Generation plan through too quickly before he fully explained it to teachers and parents.
    "It wasn't his ideas, it was the way he was delivering them," union president Pat Gardner said.
    By September 2006, frustrated in his efforts to reform the district by a divisive governing board and excessive school autonomy, Norris abruptly announced his resignation. The community rallied around him, the board offered him a new, beefed-up contract for three more years and Norris ended up staying.
    The union says Norris slowed his plan down, and Norris says he got the additional, central office control over schools he believed the district needed.
    Norris and the union have butted heads on plenty of occasions, Gardner said, but "everything we've ever disagreed with we've worked out."

CANDIDATE Q&A
    1. What is your priority for APS and what steps will you take to achieve it?
    2. Have you ever been arrested for, charged with, or convicted of drunken driving, any misdemeanor or any felony in New Mexico or any other state?
Gary Norris
    AGE: 57
    PLACE OF RESIDENCE: Sarasota, Fla.
    EDUCATION: Doctorate in education administration, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kan., 1983; master's in education administration, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kan., 1977; bachelor's in music, Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kan., 1972.
    JOB EXPERIENCE: Superintendent, Sarasota County School District, Sarasota, Fla., 2004-Present; superintendent, Salina Public Schools, Salina, Kan., 1994-2004; superintendent, Indian River County School District, Vero Beach, Fla., 1989-1994; superintendent, Hibbing Public Schools, Hibbing, Minn., 1985-1989; superintendent, Satana Unified School District, Satana, Kan., 1982-1985; assistant high school principal, Geary County Unified School District, Junction City, Kan., 1979-1982; high school principal, Mill Creek Valley Unified School District, Alma, Kan., 1978-1979; music teacher, Chillicothe R-II School District, Chillicothe, Mo., 1976-1978; music teacher, Santa Fe Trail Unified School District, Overbrook, Kan., 1973-1976; music teacher, Stockton Unified School District, Stockton, Kan., 1972-1973.
    FAMILY: Married with a daughter, 26, and son, 29.
    1. Increase student engagement and close achievement gap for youths living in a "digital generation" by: making sure the district has a sound technological infrastructure; installing large-format, computerized, interactive boards in every classroom; providing teachers with the training they need to use the technology and incorporate it effectively into their instruction.
    2. No.