By:Jeff Lipton
Dr. Paul Kelleher, hired as superintendent three years ago to stabilize the Lawrence Public Schools after several tumultuous months under his predecessor, said he is leaving the district at the end of August to take a position in Texas.
The superintendent's announcement shocked school-board members, teachers and parents, who thought he would spend more time in the district to help boost academic achievement. Kelleher, who had a five-year contract, surprised the school board with his announcement Tuesday night, May 15, before the votes in the school board election were tallied. He said he timed it so that the announcement would not impact the election and not be seen as a reaction to the vote results.
He will leave his roughly $190,000-a-year post in Lawrence and retire from public education for a job at Trinity University in San Antonio, where he will be a professor of educational leadership and chairman of the Department of Education. About two or three months ago, he was contacted about the new post. Trinity is a small, liberal arts college enrolling about 2,500 students in graduate and undergraduate programs.
Kelleher, 58, was hired as Lawrence superintendent in March 1998, after an exhaustive yearlong nationwide search for a replacement for Dr. Stewart Weinberg. The board bought out the remainder of Weinberg's contract after members determined that he had become an ineffective administrator and they could no longer work with him. The board lured Kelleher from his job as superintendent of the school system in Westport, Conn., in what they termed to be a perfect match for the Lawrence district. The job as Lawrence superintendent has taken its toll on Kelleher, whose son told him he had both a day job and a night job.
"The decision is personal and professional and I get more time to spend with my family," said Kelleher, who did not care for spending time away from his family at night. He also has been feeling the effects of the daily commute from his home in Westchester County, he said.
"This is a wonderful opportunity," he said of his new post.
But the news that he will depart before the next school term has caught many in the district off guard.
"I'm surprised, but he has his personal and professional reasons," said Frank Argento, president of the school board. "He has a life and needs to do things and I respect that.
"I don't think anything in the school district is forcing Paul Kelleher to leave."
Argento said Kelleher has done a "reasonably good job" and developed a strategic planning foundation that is a wonderful guideline for the district's educational program. He also has helped the district become a leader in new technology. In addition, Kelleher developed a program to help track students' progress in certain courses from kindergarten through the 12th grade, to assess which students need extra help.
"He got us headed in the right direction as a district and gave us some stability," Argento said. "I think he leaves with a sense that hopefully he has made an impact on the district."
Its president said the board agreed with Kelleher about 80 percent of the time. "He was making very good decisions for the school district, but 20 percent of the time we would question his decisions," Argento said.
He added that Kelleher probably did not raise test scores as much as he would have liked, but Argento said Kelleher cannot take full blame for that. About half the eighth-graders met state standards on the recent English and math assessment tests. Fourth-graders meeting standards on their English Language Arts exam dropped from 80 to 73 percent.
Kelleher said he was not given enough time for a turnaround. "I think the kind of change people hoped to see would take longer than three years to make it happen."
He said that during the last three years, students made prestigious achievements, such as in the Intel Science Talent Search, Cocoa-Cola Scholarships and the number of students entered in Advanced Placement courses.
One source said Kelleher's management ability was not his strength, often refusing to take teachers and administrators to task when the district did poorly on standardized tests. Another source said he was a pleasure to work with because he was hard working and diligent.
"I feel very good about the accomplishments," Kelleher said. "There's been a lot of good. And I feel good about the support the Board of Education has given me."
Kelleher said he struggled with the decision to leave the district after only three years, because the board invested so much time in the choice. The average length of time a superintendent stays is about five years. Weinberg, his predecessor, was there for six years.
Corinne Berke, co-president of Central Council PTA, said she would have hoped Kelleher stayed on to complete the job. "It's almost as though he were an interim superintendent," Berke said. "He was not here long enough to have an effect."
She said his first year was a feeling-out process and so he's really had two years to accomplish his goals, which is not long enough as a school chief. "I thought he did, for the most part, a very nice job," she said. "There are enough good administrators in the district to continue to function and we'll find a new superintendent and move on."
Stephen Clements, Lawrence Teachers Association president, said the union leadership has had an excellent relationship with Kelleher. "He's a very honorable man who understands the act of compromise," Clements said. "I think it's a loss for Lawrence as a school community. It came as quite a surprise."
Argento said the board will meet over the next few months to discuss what direction it wants to take in finding a new superintendent. "I hope it doesn't take that long. We're going to have to formulate a game plan. It's on the top of our agenda. Picking a superintendent is the most important thing a school board can do," he said.
Clements expressed hope that the teachers will have direct input into who will be the next superintendent and that only those with much experience as a superintendent will be considered. "This is not a training grounds for a novice person," he said. "Kelleher came with much experience."
"We were all shocked to hear that Paul Kelleher is leaving," board member Dr. David Sussman said. "He's certainly built up an infrastructure of the school system since he's been here. He has put the ingredients of the recipe together, put it in the oven and watched it cook. Unfortunately, he will not be around to taste the final product.
"We all wanted him to stay longer and are all disappointed that he's leaving so soon. He was a stabilizing force after the Weinberg years."
"I'm saddened by the news," said Dr. Kenneth Forman, Number Two School principal. "He brought a lot of stability to Lawrence Public Schools. He has a great depth of knowledge and brought a vast experience to a school system that needed his stability. Oh yes, I was in shock."
