The district will give up nearly $250K in free education for aspiring principals, but some board members say it's worth it to keep control over leadership development.
Norma Mertz, department head in educational leadership and policy studies at UT and Betty Sue Sparks, co-director of the Center for Educational Leadership, talk about proposed changes to the Leadership Academy program on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018. Knoxville News Sentinel.
Knox County Schools is ending its relationship with a principal preparation program at the University of Tennessee run by a former superintendent whose involvement school board members said was a factor in terminating the relationship.
In doing so, the district will give up nearly $250,000 in free graduate education annually for aspiring principals and sever ties with a program that, under a proposed redesign, could be run at almost no cost to the district.
Jim McIntyre, who helped found the Leadership Academy at UT in 2010 and continues to run the program, stepped down from his role as KCS superintendent in 2016, saying politics and negativity were getting in the way of his ability to do the job.
On Thursday, Knox County Schools Board of Education Chair Patti Bounds said McIntyre's involvement in the program was the "white elephant in the room" when the board voted 5-3 Wednesday against a redesign.
"It was what I received a lot of emails and had a lot of conversations out in the community about," Bounds said. "The public in general was not supportive of his style of leadership and the fact that that style of leadership would be part of the training of the future generation of administrators for Knox County Schools."
Traditionally, aspiring leaders in Knox County Schools have been tapped by administrators in their current schools, who will help train them and encourage them to apply for leadership roles, said KCS Chief Academic Officer Jon Rysewyk.
He said that while the Leadership Academy has helped those without the required certificates to obtain higher degrees, tuition and the funding of advanced degrees for most aspiring leaders is in most cases left up to the individual.
"There are plenty of other colleges and universities we can pull from and we will continue to provide mentoring internally," he said. "There are lots of programs out there with different benefits to staff who do different things."
The district has been working with UT since November on a redesign of the program after concerns were raised about the cost of the academy, the selection process for fellows and the program's curriculum.
But questions about whether bias against McIntyre also played a role in the evaluation of the program have been at issue since the beginning of the process, and board members Thursday said it ultimately was a main reason for ending the relationship.
In addition to Bounds, board members Jennifer Owen, Tony Norman, Susan Horn and Mike McMillan also voted against the redesign.
Board member Amber Rountree, who is a doctoral student at UT, recused herself from the vote.
Gloria Deathridge, Lynne Fugate and Terry Hill voted in favor of the redesign, which would have nearly eliminated the $909,754 annual cost of the program through cuts to mentor stipends and restrictions on eligibility for participation.
"It is disappointing that the Knox County Board of Education has chosen to end its partnership with the University of Tennessee’s successful and highly acclaimed Leadership Academy for aspiring school principals," McIntyre said in an email.
He said the academy, which currently works with five other districts in addition to KCS, will continue to do so and to "develop effective, student-focused school principals."
Deathridge said she was disappointed the district would no longer have a working relationship with UT "due to the fact we can't get by one individual."
"I thought that we as a board had matured and grown past it, but evidently we have not," she said. "You cannot do what a university can do at the K-12 level. I'm trying to figure out how we can do this in house and do it to a level a university can do it."
Bounds, meanwhile, said there were other reasons for the vote against the redesign, including that the program was moving away from a focus on urban schools in need of turnaround and away from using Knox County practitioners in the classroom.
The 15-month Leadership Academy program combines graduate coursework with a four-day per week residency in a public school. Graduates receive a master's or education specialist degree from UT.
The program costs about $25,000 in tuition per participant. Since its inception, that cost has been covered by the University of Tennessee for participants from Knox County Schools, adding up to nearly $250,000 worth of graduate school scholarships each year, according to McIntyre.
He resigned in January 2016 ahead of school board elections that were anticipated to turn the board against him.
During his tenure, testing, teacher evaluations and other administrative policies were divisive issues that attracted some school board candidates to run on platforms at least partially directed against him.
Norman, a McIntyre critic and former Knox County teacher, said Thursday the things the Leadership Academy offered could also be done internally.
"The people of Knox County did not want him as our superintendent," he said of McIntyre. "It would be irresponsible to keep him in a leadership position over our future leaders, so this board has taken the steps to make sure that doesn't happen."