Archive: Around Town

Mark LewisIn part II of our interview with Mark Lewis, Lansing's new School Superintendent, we talked about his first weeks as Lansing Superintendent, technology in the classroom, dealing with rising costs and long-term leadership.

Lansing Star:  Have you found it difficult to come into the district just at this time when the capital project is about to go up for a vote in a couple of months?

Mark Lewis: Well, it's challenging, because you have to focus so acutely on the project itself.  A lot of the time that I would be spending in outreach and building bridges, getting to know staff, getting to know community -- I'm planning.  I'm planning meetings, I'm working with the design team and the Ad Hoc Committee now.  It takes up a significant amount of time, but it's so important.  This is an important time right now. And it's going to end.  This phase will end in the next few weeks.  The Board of Education will make a decision by February 13.  And regardless of the decision, if it's 'go' or 'no go,' there will be a better pace.  I'll be able to do what should be done when you walk into a school district.  That is make sure that you're visible, that people are getting to know you.  You're getting to know people in the buildings and in the community.

But I have to say that through the process of this construction project I am getting to know a lot of people in the community, because those people who have attended the Ad Hoc Committee meetings -- I know them now.  But that certainly is not enough.  I have more work to do in that regard.

LS: That committee was something that you brought to the table.


ML: Yes.  It became clear to me -- I met for a second time with the groups that interviewed me, after I was appointed, to get more feedback from them now that I am not a candidate, but I am the incoming superintendent.  (Or (laughing) as my one colleague calls it, 'Superintendent Select.')  'Now talk to me about priorities.  Give me some guidance.'

I remember especially the community committee that I talked with.  We got on the subject of the construction project, and they said 'we know very little about the construction project..'  Well, you can't get too far ahead of the community when you're talking about something as dramatic and consequential as a construction project.

So I went back to the board on December 12th and I recommended that before we go much further in the process that we bring the community into the process, the dialog, to make sure that we don't go off in one direction while the community is going in another direction.

LS: I've noticed that at least in the public side of your job that listening seems to be a top priority.  Is that part of a conscious plan?

ML: It's critical.  And it's something that in this stage in my career and in this stage of my life I guess -- I can do better than I did in the past.  Hopefully most people get to a point where they value and they regard other peoples' input and opinions more than their own.  Because you keep redefining your role as a school leader if you want to make a difference.  And I certainly do want to make a difference.

I don't think people really expect you to agree with them all the time, but people expect their school leaders to have the ability to listen to what they have to say and be recognized and be acknowledged and be valued.

How do you redefine that?  You make sure that you have great insights into what the community wants in the schools.  These are the community's schools.  They're not my schools.  They're everybody's schools.  There is a rich culture and rich tradition in Lansing that I need to tap into, that I need to learn about... I need to be able to enhance and be able to nurture.

If I were to come in the door and say, 'Hi I'm Mark Lewis and here's a plan for school improvement in this district  -- if I was a Lansing community member I might say, 'Well maybe it's your plan, but it's not our plan.'

So before you do anything you have to build credibility.  And how do you build credibility?  You make sure that people understand that you value what they have to say.  you may not always agree with it, but it's important that you listen.  And you factor that into subsequent decision making.  That's what I endeavor to do.

I don't think people really expect you to agree with them all the time, but people expect their school leaders to have the ability to listen to what they have to say and be recognized and be acknowledged and be valued.  That's what I hope that I always portray, because it's sincere.

LS: You spent a lot of time, which I assume was on your own time, coming here, meeting people, participating in School Board meetings and so on.  By now you may not know the district in the way that you will know it a year from now, but I'm sure you have some ideas about it.  So what do you see as the top challenges for the district?

ML: To maintain and enhance the quality of the educational program for students is number one.  To build trust and confidence in this office and to address the problem of the leadership turnover here.  It certainly has made a negative impact on the operation.  It's important that there is stability.  To make sure that I am a protector of the pride that I see here... that I make sure that what goes on in these buildings on this campus... that this community can always feel proud of.

Because they do feel proud.  When Lansing residents talk to me about their schools you can see them swell with pride.  Everybody.  That's an awesome responsibility, that's an awesome charge for a superintendent of schools, and it's one that a superintendent of schools can't take lightly.

It's very important that people see the superintendent as earnest, sincere in his or her willingness and desire to work to maintain and enhance the program.  Our clientele, our kids... our clientele constantly changes.  They're constantly changing.  Kids today are far different even than they were in the '90s, and way different from when you and I were in school.  The environment within which they live is so dramatically different.

You and I can think back -- we thought that when we were going to school... in that era, the 'turbulant 60s' we  were so challenged as kids growing up in that time, but as I reflect upon these kids the world that these kids are in is far more uncertain.

LS: There is a lot more stimulus, too.

ML: There is a lot more stimulus.  The advent of brain research and how kids learn has forced educators to take a look at how we teach, what we teach and the resources that we use to get to kids.  And what we expect kids to learn.  Because the future is so uncertain and so insecure that we need to equip kids with skills that we didn't need to be equipped with.  We got on fine, we did fine, we were going to be a success anyway, because we were within a context of a world that facilitated that.  I'm not so sure, these days, that that world's still there.

I do think that with public education becoming more and more expensive, and it is, we're going to have to look for ways that we can cap costs and control costs.

LS: That was one of the things I wanted to ask you about.  There is a lot of concern in Lansing about getting up to speed with technology education.  There is also a school of thought that if you learn the basics you can do anything.  I think it goes beyond whether you can do your multiplication tables in your head versus relying on a calculator.  Where do you stand on that scale?

ML: Well, technology in the classroom should be a means to the conventional ends that we've always wanted to have for kids, but in a more expedient, more efficient way through the use of technology.  We want kids to learn their multiplication tables, but can kids learn them far better, in a far more effective way, in a far more comprehensive way through the use of technology?  The answer is yes, absolutely.

So they do have to learn those basic skills, but today's computers are the chalk and blackboards of yesterday.  It's just a more effective, more efficient means for teachers and students to learn what needs to be learned.  Now, that doesn't mean that they don't need to learn the computer applications.  But it is a means to achieve goals in the classroom.  It is not an end in and of itself.  

I do think that with public education becoming more and more expensive, and it is, we're going to have to look for ways that we can cap costs and control costs.  The community gets tired, I know it does because people have told me.  And I get my tax bill, too, and I can see what's happening.  

'Health care is going up, pensions are going up, fuel prices are going up.  So we have no choice but to pass it on to you.'  We say that to the community every year and we expect them to accept it and say 'Well, OK, there's nothing you can do about it.  I'll vote and support it.'  

But I think there are things we can do, and there are things we can do using technology, for one thing.  We can look to consolidate services.  Turf issues are alive and well in school districts.  I was part of the process to try and merge two school districts at one time and the turf issues got in the way.  But if we had merged there would have been such a massive cost savings, and that has always stuck with me.

LS: Are you talking about within the district or district-to-district?

ML: Both.  Looking at ways that we can control costs within the district by making sure that we fund the priorities.  The things that are not priorities we have to make tough decisions about.  We can't be that freight train that keeps adding car after car after car after car without putting a caboose on it.  Because what happens to the engine?  The engine can't handle it after a while.  The engine is the community and the taxpaying body of the district.

I know that's been going on here, but it's important that we accelerate our analysis of our spending plan and how we allocate our fiscal resources and make sure that we do have the money for computers or technology in the future.  And we do have the money for curriculum development and we do have the money for staff development.  That we don't have to cut those things because fuel is going up three dollars and fifty cents a gallon.


Or the pension funds have suddenly gone from 9% of gross payroll to 20% of gross payroll.  Then we're cutting program to fund these things that are out of control, or that we have no control over.  Maybe if we look to consolidate some of our services we could have an effect on these things that we know we can't control.  That way we can preserve and continue to promote technology in the classroom, staff development, curriculum development and all this...

That's really the mainstay and the life blood of schools.  Those three things:  technology development, staff development and curriculum development.  Those three.  We have to put a plan in place and then fund the plan.

LS: We touched on long-term leadership.  I'm sure you know Lansing has typically scored above average on State and national testing, but is slipping in English and Language Arts.  Do you see that as part of the unsteady leadership, the number of superintendents that have come through this office?  

ML: Well, indirectly yes.  When you have a continuous turnover of leadership at the top then your planning process is effected.  Within your planning process you should have the means to address what you see as those areas that are starting to slip, or that you notice deficiencies in.  You can do that though a planning process that looks at the curriculum, looks at the various skills that, perhaps, individually of students and collectively as grades or classrooms of students... where you need to focus more attention.  Whether curriculum or instructional strategies or both.  They fall under the overall district plan.

Well, who is the caretaker of the overall district plan?  It's the Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools.  If you don't have that continuous stability where you are monitoring the plan, where you're nurturing the plan and you have the people who are involved in the planning process and the implementation of the plan... Sure, the next person who walks in the door comes in and says, 'Well, I guess we have to start a plan.  We have to put a plan together here.'

Then the next person comes and says 'We have to put a plan together here.'  It's not effecting anything then.

That's really the mainstay and the life blood of schools.  Those three things:  technology development, staff development and curriculum development.

LS: I know that long term planning has been one of (Board member) Dan Brown's issues for a long time.  Have you started working with the board to look 3, 5 or 10 years down the road?

ML: Uh... at this point...

LS: Is that an unfair question in your first few weeks in the office?

LS: (Laughing) No, it's not an unfair question.  How do you start a long term plan?  First you have to listen to what peoples' perspectives are about what you need to go into a long term plan, and what the Board's expectations are of me as a superintendent in terms of the development of a long term plan.

So right now we're talking about that.  We had a workshop last night with the Board and the school attorney to talk about those issues.  What is it that's expected not only of the Superintendent, but what are the Board's expectations of the school district as it evolves over the next three to five years?

I made a lot of notes about that.  We do have front burner items now.  Obviously there are a number of them,  the construction project probably being the most public of them, but certainly not the only one.  We have the annual budget that we're putting together as we speak.  We have critical positions to fill... Business Administrator and also Elementary Principal, although fortunately we have a great one here now in Earlene Carr.  She's phenomenal.

We have been putting the schedule down for the selection process for the business official, because that's such a critical position in this district.  So those are really three big issues in addition to just getting out there and becoming visible in the district.  It's very, very important.

Next week we'll wrap up the interview with a discussion of how testing affects learning, plus moving to Lansing with three dogs.

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