Making the grade

by Dale Bohren
Tuesday, July 1, 2008 1:53 PM MDT

Joel Dvorak took the wheel as superintendent of the Natrona County School District this week.

Dvorak, who is moving up from the ranks, has said repeatedly that his goal will be to make every student a champion. In a district where the State Department of Education measures the dropout rate at 27.3 percent, making every student a champion is either a gutsy, get-out-of-the-way-I’m-going-to-the-top mission statement, or it’s just plain laughable with not much wiggle room in between.

But if you talk with Dvorak, you’ll understand that he believes he can do it. With difficult challenges, anybody who succeeds first has to believe he can before others will consider the possibilities.

The district’s budget to employ 2,500 teachers and staff to educate 14,000 students next year is roughly $150 million. Dvorak says that is adequate funding for his plan.

Dvorak says that in his experience, the current staff in place as he takes the wheel “is the best team I’ve ever seen…achieving mediocre results.”

Dvorak is a measured person living in a measured world. He said he expects to earn his success as measured by results.

Some knowledgeable people in the district believe that while pay never has been higher, the morale at the building level, where education of students takes place, never has been lower than it is today.

Dvorak says he hopes to conduct a professional climate assessment; I would guess something like a Gallup Poll, in which employees’ comments are gathered anonymously and professionally, to give a baseline measurement of the work environment and health of the district as an organization.

Dvorak says he would make changes to people or systems based on that the survey information. I believe this is a critical piece of the puzzle that Dvorak faces in his mission to make every student a champion.

Last year, NCSD board Chair Shannon Jackett told the Casper Journal that “the school board only has one employee. We hire the superintendent and that person manages everything and everyone else in the district.”

Jackett also said she believes the board hired the right person for superintendent.

We are just now learning what Dvorak’s marching orders from the school board will be. Those goals will go before the school board for a vote on July 16. But certainly lowering the dropout rate should be at the top of the list.

If we hired the right person, and he believes he can focus the district in such a way as to make every student a champion, let’s give him the tools and support he requests and then stay out of his way so he can get the job done.

The only person who can achieve a goal like Dvorak’s -- make it to the top, make every student a champion -- is somebody who really believes that he can climb that hill.

And while the effort will require teamwork by every single one of the 2,500 employees and many in the community at large, that kind of vision-focused leadership is not a team sport.

It is not specifically the board’s work. That kind of leadership is the definition of an individual in relentless pursuit of a goal, accepting nothing less than his best effort or yours, giving what it takes to be successful and demanding nothing less of himself than is demanded of everyone else.

I admire the guts it takes to publicly set a goal like Dvorak’s and then ask to be measured by results. With the weight of the failure or success of thousands of students’ lives and indeed a whole community at stake, we all should hope and pray he makes the grade.

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