Superintendent Bolgen Vargas’s contract with the Rochester school district ends June 30, 2016. While it may seem premature to be thinking about it, the school board will need to have a serious discussion in the next few months about whether to renew that contract or start the search for a new superintendent.
It’s hardly a secret that Vargas’s relationship with some school board members is seriously strained. If a majority begins to lose faith in him, and they want a successor in place at the start of the 2016-17 school year, they may have to begin the search process in a few months.
Vargas’s relationship with some board members has been shaky for a while. But it sank to its lowest point earlier this year when Vargas threatened the board – in essence, his bosses – with legal action. Vargas argued that the board had overstepped its authority when it decided to limit which positions he could hire as top-tier managers.
While Vargas has not taken any further legal action against the board, renewal of his contract isn’t guaranteed, and the signs of a break-up are there.
For the district – one of the worst performing in the state – this is familiar territory. Vargas is Rochester’s fourth superintendent (if you include Bill Cala’s year as interim superintendent) in 13 years. That kind of turnover makes it hard for the district to implement consistent policies and sustain a consistent vision for improving student achievement.
Superintendents in large urban districts tend to change every three to four years, according to some research. No sooner do they settle into an organization, understand the school system, and become familiar with the community, than they’re asked to leave – or they move on to a better opportunity.
Some of the turnover may be explained by state education laws. New York, like many states, requires that superintendents’ contracts be for a minimum of three years and a maximum of five. Boards can renew the contract, but the structure creates a natural break.
The turnover could also be a reflection of the pressures that come with the job in urban districts – and the difficulty of the job. After 18 to 24 months, a superintendent’s strengths and weaknesses are fairly evident. And the clamor for results begins to get louder.
“There’s no such thing as a perfect superintendent,” says board member Willa Powell. The person you think you’ve hired isn’t always the person you get, she says, and that can be both good and bad.
Board President Van White says that he is not overly concerned by the turnover in Rochester’s superintendents. Each superintendent, from Manny Rivera to Vargas, has made contributions, he says. They’ve come into the district with their own set of skills and experiences, and frequently they were hired to address specific issues of the time, he says.
Vargas, for example, was charged in his first year with stabilizing the district and repairing its relationship with teachers, who had gone through a particularly rocky period with Vargas’s predecessor, Jean-Claude Brizard.
But critics, including many parents and teachers, argue that the rotation at the top comes with a cost. Each new superintendent brings a new management philosophy and style as well as new ideas for reform. Some newcomers build on the prior superintendent’s work, but some arrive with different priorities.
For instance, Jean-Claude Brizard pushed for a school funding formula sometimes referred to as “equitable student funding.” The goal, he said, was to prevent some schools from receiving too much funding and other high-needs schools not receiving enough. Each school was supposed to receive a set amount of funding based more on head count and less on a principal’s ability to finesse the system. The plan fizzled with Brizard’s departure.
The massive $1.2 billion schools modernization program, begun under Manny Rivera, has also been modified by subsequent superintendents.
Vargas says he’s tried to build on the work of his predecessors. Like Brizard and Bill Cala before him, he has tried to change the district’s more bureaucratic culture to one that is more focused on parent and student needs.
Still, Vargas faced his own set of challenges when he took over as superintendent. And many of them have been formidable.
“There’s no other superintendent in the county and maybe even the state that has been at a greater disadvantage to run a district like this than I have been,” he says. And the data suggests he’s right.
He started with a graduation rate of 43 percent. Black and Latino male performance on math and reading assessments were some of the lowest in the state. His job was made even harder by the state Regents, who raised the requirements to graduate.
He walked into a district where thousands of students were absent every day, and recordkeeping of chronic absenteeism was abysmal.
He had to continue a school-closing program that began under Brizard – an emotionally charged issue for many students, families, and teachers even when a school isn’t performing well.
Vargas also had to begin implementing new state-mandated teacher and principal evaluations as well as the more rigorous curriculum referred to as Common Core. Both remain highly controversial.
But perhaps his biggest challenge was managing one of the largest government agencies in the region. He spoke publicly about denying tenure to principals who weren’t cutting it and about his need for management help from area colleges and universities. His openness about the district’s bureaucratic problems was praised by some and scorned by others, who saw it as a sign of incompetence.
Nonetheless, Vargas has made some significant headway on some of the district’s most entrenched problems. Almost from the beginning, he has said that the district’s declining enrollment can be stopped only by improving the schools. And to reach that goal, he’s emphasized the fundamentals.
Vargas drew community-wide attention to the district’s need to dramatically boost student attendance, improving classroom attendance records, and leading outreach programs, among other efforts. As simplistic as it sometimes sounded, it became a refrain he has repeated often: the district’s graduation rate can’t improve if students aren’t in school.
And he has increased art, music, and sports programs – often standard amenities of schools in middle-class communities – saying they would help students be more engaged in school.
A district-wide emphasis on reading at grade level by third grade became one of his first major initiatives for turning around a failing district. He helped students get library cards, emphasized the importance of parents reading to children, and encouraged parents to create specific places in the home for reading and studying. Once again, seemingly simplistic – but Vargas has been particularly focused on addressing the fact that students in the Rochester school district often lack the bedrock foundations for success.
Vargas’s most sweeping initiative has been getting children into the classroom sooner and increasing their instruction time. Among his efforts: launching free pre-kindergarten for all city children.
“This district is the only one in this area that could make this claim: every child that wants a seat in pre-k has one,” he says.
He successfully urged the New York State legislature to make enrolling children in kindergarten a legal requirement in Rochester at age 5. And under his direction, 10 Rochester schools offer expanded learning: 300 hours of additional instruction time during the school year. Three more schools will offer expanded learning when school starts in the fall.
And he’s tried to close what educators refer to as the summer learning gap – a learning loss that occurs during idle summer months for many low-income students – by offering educationally enriched summer programs.
Is any of this working? Vargas says it’s still too early to point to hard data. Expanded learning, for instance, is only in its second year. But Vargas says he notices a change in attitude in students, teachers, and parents in those schools. Attendance tends to be higher, students have fewer behavioral problems, and parents are more engaged, he says. Teachers and staff are also more engaged, he says.
And he points to a graduation rate that has been increasing even as the academic demands on students have grown more rigorous. Last year’s graduation rate was 51 percent, certainly still low. But that’s up from the low 40’s when he took office, and that’s significant, he says.
This year’s graduation rate is projected to be 56 percent at the low end, possibly closer to 60 percent at the high end, he says.
But some board members haven’t been as enthusiastic about that success as others, saying that the improvements aren’t all the result of Vargas’s efforts. Brizard, for instance, deserves some credit for the improving grad rates, says board president Van White. That rate rose from 39 percent to 43 percent during his tenure.
Vargas’s hiring wasn’t unanimous; White voted against him, and for at least two other board members, he wasn’t the first choice. And for some board members, concerns began to surface early on. For instance, he shocked some of them when for his chief of staff he hired former Rochester Deputy Mayor Patricia Malgieri, a longtime critic of the district.
Tension has also resulted from a sharp difference in opinion about the role of a school board and that of a superintendent. Should the board simply hire a superintendent, set policy and goals, and stay out of the way if the goals are being met? How closely involved should the board be in supervising the superintendent? When does that supervision become micro-management?
In part, that was at the heart of Vargas’s threat in February of this year to take legal action against the school board. Under state law, the Rochester board has to approve the hiring of many district employees, including teachers and principals. But on his own, the superintendent can hire some of his immediate management personnel, and the board wanted to be able to approve which positions those would be. For instance, General Counsel Ed Lopez is in that group, but he is the attorney for the entire district, not just the superintendent.
White says the board hasn’t been micro-managing operations. And he says it’s because the current board has been willing to be more assertive in its supervision of the superintendent that the district is starting to see improvements.
Tension over the superintendent’s responsibilities could widen due to a new state education law that gives new authority to superintendents of persistently failing schools. receivership. Under that law, superintendents will have a short time to turn a school around or close it, and their decision won’t require a school board’s approval.
Another issue: Although they don’t say so on the record, some board members question Vargas’s judgment and his management skills. There’s been substantial turnover, they note, in his senior management team – people whom he himself hired.
And some board members have expressed concern about his conflict with ASAR, the district’s administrators union. Contract negotiations between the district and ASAR have been difficult. And some ASAR members were furious when Vargas wanted to deny tenure to some administrators.
Whether Vargas and the board will mend their differences is difficult to predict. The differences are serious, and some strong personalities are involved. If Vargas’s relationship with the board sours further, to the point where some members want to buy out his contract, at least four of the seven board members would have to approve. Taking that step would be both expensive and disruptive. So, however, is the continuing tension between the board and the superintendent.
An additional complication: the fall election. The terms of four of the seven school board members expire this year, and one incumbent, Melisza Campos, isn’t seeking re-election. So at least one and possibly four members could change. It could be up to a new board to decide whether Vargas is right for the job.
Both the board and the superintendent seem optimistic that the next report on graduation rates will show continued improvement. But that report won’t be out until sometime in 2016. And it will take more than one or two positive reports to indicate real, sustainable improvement. Meantime, the board must prepare to make a decision about Vargas’s future.
Vargas: ‘I’m committed to Rochester’
Rochester schools Superintendent Bolgen Vargas is entering the final stretch of his four-year contract.
But he wasn’t new to the Rochester school district or to education in the Rochester area when he was named superintendent. He served on the city school board from 1996-2003, four of those years as board president. And he had been a guidance counselor in the Greece Central School District for 20 years.
He’s made some major changes in the district, and there are some indications that the district is finally on the path to improvement. But his problems with the school board have at times become quite public, and have led some observers to wonder if he’ll even be here a year from now.
In a recent interview, Vargas talked about some of his accomplishments, but he said he doesn’t want to oversell the early results of the work the district has been doing. He acknowledged that he’s had some skirmishes with the board, but he said he thinks their problems can be resolved.
And he said he wants to keep his job and continue the work he’s started. The following is an edited version of that interview.
CITY: There are indications that the graduation rate will improve significantly for this year. Will we finally break 60 percent?
VARGAS: We do know that we’ve done better than last year, and last year’s on-time graduation rate, which includes summer graduations in August, was 51 percent. That was a five-year high. And we’ve been able to achieve that even though we have higher standards from the state. Now all students need a Regents diploma, which requires passing five Regents exams.
The potential is there, but I like to under-promise and over-deliver. But given all of the challenges we are facing, I think you’ll still see tangible signs that we’re moving in the right direction. We’re on the right path.
The district has extended the school day at some schools, giving students more instruction time. How many schools have this?
Ten, and next year we’ll have 13.
You’ve said on multiple occasions that extended day is working. What evidence or data do you have so far?
We have some good data, but realize that we are only completing the second year. We’ll have even better data soon. But there are different ways to tell if something is working. And sometimes one of the best ways is by looking at the impact you’re having on students and families. If you go to School 34, School 23, School 46, or School 10, and you were to ask parents what they think, I believe they’ll tell you that’s it’s working, from their perspective.
They see what makes common sense; we’ve broken away from giving our students the least amount of instruction time when obviously they need more.
Also, we have attendance improvement and behavior changes in some of those schools that suggest something is working.
It seems that after all the effort you have put into improving attendance – tracking down students, making parents aware of the importance of attendance, better recordkeeping – there has been some improvement in the elementary grades. But there hasn’t been much improvement in the upper grades.
That’s to be expected. What we’re trying to do is break the generational failure that this district has had for the last 30 years.
We know that if you haven’t paid attention to the fundamentals like reading at grade level by third grade, making sure that children develop the skill set that’s necessary to be successful in high school, they’re not going to do well. This includes attendance, because when a child and a family get used to not coming to school in kindergarten, first, second, and third grade, when they enter middle school they’ll feel this is the norm.
Prevention is better than the serious level of intervention that we’ve been required to give. There is a strong association between chronic absenteeism and low graduation rates, because research tells us that unless we turn attendance around, we can’t meet our reading goals. They’re interrelated.
It’s no secret that you’ve had difficulty with the school board. Has the conflict been about a difference in understanding of roles? The role of superintendent and the role of board members seems to be the flash point. You’re charged with implementation. But they’re elected, and they’re the ones the public points to when things go wrong. Is tension over that just the nature of urban districts?
This is more common in urban districts. And it’s happening around the country. But we will come to a joint resolution on this matter. There’s no question in my mind about that. The board and I want to move forward in the best way to serve our students.
The board members are definitely the stewards of the organization. There are key areas that they are responsible for. One is making sure that we are spending our money in a very effective way. I think I have helped the board do that well. When I arrived here, we had payroll mistakes costing a half million dollars. I’ve been able to resolve a lot of those issues.
Policy is the second area where the board is responsible. The superintendent is responsible for implementation. And there is some gray area there, but people will tell you that when you micro-manage the implementation of policies, that’s not the most effective way for an organization to be well run. When that happens, normally you run into trouble. And this is not unique to this situation.
Actually, we’ve had that for many years. I was one of the board members who supported making the roles clearly defined. The way you resolve this in my view is that you have to agree that someone on the operational side has to be in charge.
We’ve seen our share of superintendents leaving after three years. They make a lot of changes, but they’re not here long enough to get much done. I can’t think of a highly successful business that operates that way.
When I first went into this job, I asked the board for a five-year contract. I have a four-year contract. You normally begin to see conflict emerge in Year 2. All my colleagues told me to go for a three-year contract, and I told them no, because I am committed to do the work. And no, you cannot do this work in three years.
And I’m not just saying we’re on the right track. I’m telling people: see how we’re doing. Are we graduating more students? Are we doing more for our students? There’s not one person who can argue that we aren’t. Are we spending our money more efficiently?
Yet even with unprecedented results, it’s difficult to change the culture of the district. It is the most difficult to change and the last thing to change.
When you first started, there were a number of critics who speculated that you would be a co-superintendent with Rochester Teachers Association President Adam Urbanski. But in some ways it turns out that you’re in a co-superintendent relationship with some of your critics on the board.
It’s an interesting irony. But the only thing I can tell you is that this kind of work requires the ability to work together. Nothing great happens unless you work together. And I strive to do that.
Your contract ends in almost exactly a year. Do you want stay?
I’m 100 percent committed to Rochester. I’m from here. And I’ve always been committed to Rochester’s students, and that will not change.
Are you currently looking for another job?
I’ve had other opportunities, but that’s not my approach to handling things. I am 100 percent committed to Rochester.
This article appears in Jul 1-7, 2015.
“We have some good data, but realize that we are only completing the second year.” So he has no data, and there was no follow up question about this. This article seems like a glowing commercial for Vargas. No mention of the transportation fiasco? The email- gate featuring Patricia malgieri was a huge faux pas that should’ve been addressed. Why not interview the prior ASAR president to get a more in depth glance of Vargas? He deserves praise for some of the things he did, but come on! Journalist need to outline both sides and ask the tough questions so that readers are enlightened. Sadly, this article missed the boat and leaves the reader with more questions.
It is not surprising that Vargas may be on his way out after the public spat last winter. However, Van White’s comments about changing executives every three years not being a problem clearly identifies how some school board members are simply clueless about what is needed to move the RCSD forward. Vargas is the chief exec for an organization with more than 40 thousand students and staff. No private organization would think that a consistent turnover in that position of every 3-4 years was healthy. As you wrote, the situation leads to ever changing, inconsistent policies, and due to the learning curve, little long term leadership from the top.
But another problem that the merry go round causes is how it discourages qualified candidates from being interested. At that age and level, who is going to want a job that is difficult enough on its own when the repeated history is that you will be out of a job after one contract term. Since City like to use the Pittsford school district as a reference, they have had 7 supers in the past 40 years, so an average tenure of ~6 years. Sure, some have been there for short periods, including one of the seven who was an interim, but Mary Price, the previous one, was in her job for 11 years.
I did not tell Mr. Macaluso that changing Superintendents was not a problem. Indeed, as Chair of the Council of Urban Board’s of Education I am quite familiar with the problems which can occur when there is instability “at the top”. What I indicated to Mr. Macaluso was that the stability and effective leadership that is so desperately needed in urban education can be found when Boards of Education are proactive and not passive. Boards which ensure that (no matter who the Superintendent is) there is compliance with effective/long standing Board policy, provide the stability that is necessary for success. Moreover, I indicated to Mr. Macaluso that Boards which insist that incoming Superintendents “stay the course” with respect to existing initiatives that show promise and resist the temptation to change course simply because a new superintendent wishes to leave his own fingerprint, are most likely to leave a lasting impression on their District. In short, while Boards should work to ensure stability at Central Office, it is the consistency of policy and programing that puts a District in the best position to ensure the kind of long term success which we all want and deserve for our schools, staff, and students.
This essay sounds like a restaurant review. It points out some flaws and opinions but it does not tell the public when they should stay away because the food is potentially poisonous. The RCSD is one of the worst school districts in the country! Of course there are pockets of excellence and most people are working hard but as a whole, the organization is pitiful. When the health department finds major issues with a restaurant they mandate specific changes to be made. If these are not met, the place faces closure. It is so sad that the system in place to improve food quality works so much efficiently than the one in place t help kids, parents and teachers.
If the Board of Education were to not reward Dr. Vargas with a new contract would be a major disservice to both the RCSD and to the community we serve. I have known and worked with Dr. Vargas for decades in the past in his role as both as an educator and community leader and in the present in his role as Superintendent. I have always known him to be intelligent, charming and truly concerned with the people he both knows and serves.
Has his leadership of the RCSD been perfect? Of course not. He has made a few missteps along the way. His refusal to close the “Rubber room” serves as an embarrassment and a point of real anger among all levels of staff within the RCSD, from service employee to teachers and administrators. He has appointed some truly dreadful, incompetent and I would say down right hateful people to positions of authority. He has clearly alienated many members of ASAR to the point of open revolt (wait until next week…). And at times not sought the advice or guidance of veteran staff members (and I include myself among them), or always acted on it when given. But this is to be expected, he cannot be expected to listen to everyone every time, and he must be free to make his own decisions based on a wide range of advice. Whether he accepts and acts on the advice provided by me or any other staff or community member is not important, as long as the decisions he makes in the end prove to be made with trust and well-reasoned thought.
But let’s be clear, issues such as these are inherent in the leadership of any large organization. Dr. Vargas has been far and away the most visible Superintendent we’ve had since Peter McWalters almost three decades ago. It is not unusual to find Dr. Vargas outside your door and walking the hallways speaking with teachers, students and administrators, often without warning the building administration. This is a huge change from the last half dozen Superintendents. Now if he could just leave his entourage of RCSD Legal reps and others who often try to run interference and steer him away from people or conversations they do not want him to hear. His presence in the buildings builds confidence within the staff.
While his actions have angered many within the Administrative ranks (ranks that are by all reports include many hundreds of redundant, unnecessary staff), a great many of these Administrators are failed Principals or other high level staff who have proven to be incompetent, ineffective , vindictive and are in fact, redundant. Of course they resist his policies, in many cases they are trying to protect their jobs and “turf”, when in fact they should have been terminated years ago due to either incompetency or redundancy. Employment is the Board’s domain, and they must support Dr. Vargas by removing some of these impediments by addressing these employment issues.
Graduation rates have indeed increased, and many of the policies put in place by Dr. Vargas are directly responsible. All City HS is a case in point. It has been extremely successful due in no small part to the Administration (kudos to Mr. Vargas, Mr. Baldino and Ms. Hart) appointed by Dr. Vargas and the teaching and support staff appointed to the building. Unfortunate downsizing due to building location reassignment threatens some of that success at All City, however the separation and isolation of NorthStar and LyncX from All City is a much needed change.
The CTE changes promised and now being implemented by Dr. Vargas hold a great deal of promise for the future of our students. We finally have a Superintendent who sees the need to prepare our students for a job environment that demands greater and greater technical and vocational skills. With the caveat that Dr. Vargas hasn’t fully supported the process by allowing certain questionably certified staff to remain, potentially a huge roadblock to the success and accreditation of the programs, especially at Edison. He has been made aware of the names, and hopefully he will find a way to rectify the situation.
I do fear that the new (lack of) “Discipline Policy” in the RCSD as approved by the Board will further undermine the improvements made over the past few years under Dr. Vargas’ leadership, but again, that will be a fault of the Board, not Dr. Vargas.
Dr. Vargas has expressed his desire and commitment to remain in the RCSD and to continue to serve the community despite receiving more financially rewarding offers. We share that commitment, as both of us have reached the age of retirement (or in my case, long passed it) and have chosen to remain at our jobs. I trust Dr. Vargas’s sincerity in this commitment. He remains a true asset to the RCSD and to our community and I hope the Board recognizes his value and grants him a new contact at the expiration of the current contract.
Don Murphy
RCSD for 21 years and counting!
The Rochester School District is not a one-man show. Dr.Vargas needs lots of inputs from the community. He needs to welcome it, with open arms, whether it is positive or negative. He needs an open-door policy.
Instead, I get a sense that our schools are off limits to outsiders who have their own ideas and opinions. Perhaps this can change, with or without Superintendent Vargas. “Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open. ” (James Dewar)
Ideas, proposals, suggestion and the like are not welcome, PERIOD! I have been on a one person “crusade” to introduce an urban school enhancement program. This proposal was sent to Johns Hopkins and received an excellent review. Do you think that Van White would even entertain the courtesy of a reply! Forget about it. I did receive a reply from Bolgen Vargas and he referred me to a teacher. That was months ago and I don’t expect to hear from him. If there is no confidence, no trust, the giving of responsibility but without the authority that must accompany that, continued failure is assured. Van White opposed the appointment of Bolgen Vargas from day one. He needs to prove (and justify his outrageous salary that he can live without,…just ask him) himself to be correct in that assessment. I have looked at this RCSD and studied it for over three years now. It’s not the teachers and its not Bolgen Vargas, it’s Van White. I have said it over and over, the urban school system is not on a level playing field with the suburban district. You need a different approach to educating, to keeping butts in seats and you need to do that with relevant education. These kids are bored out of their gourds and drop out to peer pressure resulting in eventual poverty and all the misery associated with it. You can’t keep kids in school by promising them the world if they just stick it out till graduation. Then what,….a piece of paper with little chance of post high school success. They need to be able to connect the academics with professions and careers throughout their education. They need a clear pathway to a chosen career. That’s what keeps them coming back, a clear vision of their future, one with a profession or career that will provide a supporting wage. That is what wipes out poverty.
Do I sound angry? nope,…well beyond that. All I want for Christmas is an upper 90% graduation rate, students that have the academics and understand the relevance of those academics in conjunction with a future profession, then have a clear pathway to that profession or career, which is known as POST HIGH SCHOOL SUCCESS! (and I live in Fairport,…what’s up with that?) I have outlined that education enhancement and it’s open to whomever is interested in looking it over.
My father (still with us at96) told me that you cannot give something away. People don’t have an appreciation for giving something for free. It actually makes them look foolish. They, in their paid position, couldn’t think of that and now you offer it for free?! Bad policy. You should charge a million dollars for the idea. Now you may get the attention it deserves.
Pretty smart man, even at this late stage in life.
If “Dutch” or anyone would like to contact me, Harry Pearle, to discuss RCSD further, you can email: pearle (at) writeme.com . Perhaps, if we put our heads together, something useful might come of it. Thanks http://www.SavingSchools.org
OOPs, caught two typos, I meant to say Kudos to Armando Ramirez and it should be 31 years and counting!
Don Murphy, why don’t you share with us a list of “down right hateful people [whom Vargas] has appointed to positions of authority.” I BET WE CAN GUESS WHO WOULD BE ON THAT LIST.
Also the alternate “reality” that you described at so-called All City High is very, very different than the one described by people I know who have been working there since the program opened.