Q&A with George Entwistle, Scarborough's new superintendent of schools

New superintendent looks to community for priorities

Dr. George Entwistle III

SCARBOROUGH — There’s a new man atop the Red Storm totem pole in Scarborough.

Dr. George H. Entwistle III, 57, was hired as superintendent of schools March 17, besting a pool of 20 applicants in a four-month search process that began last fall, with the sudden resignation of David Doyle. Assistant Superintendent Jo Anne Sizemore had held the reins until July 1, when Entwistle came on board.

A 21-year Cape Elizabeth resident, Entwistle boasts an impressive resume, with documented success in both public education and private business. He earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Massachusetts and a master’s in psychology at Assumption College, in Worcester, Mass. After several years in the mental health field, he entered corporate America in the human resources department of Weyerhaeuser Co., a Fortune 500 maker of forest products, based in Seattle. It was while serving on the Cape Elizabeth school board (from 1996 to 2003) that Entwistle began to pursue a doctorate in educational leadership, earning his degree from Boston University in 2000. He was an assistant superintendent in Camden (2003-2004), then as the top man in Falmouth (2004-2009) and finally in Belmont, Mass. (2009-2011), before accepting the job in Scarborough.

The new superintendent was just five days into his tenure he took the time to sit down with The Current to chat about his experience and his expectations.

Q: You had a long career in the private sector before entering the public arena. Why did you make that transition?

A: I started my career working in mental health, and, after a number of years, discovered I really liked the management piece of that more than doing the clinical work, at which point I left and joined the corporate world, working in human resources at Weyerhaeuser, where I did all of their strategic planning, among other things. But I've always had one foot in education. I’ve taught since I was in graduate school at the college level.

Q: And how did you end up in education full time?

A: What piqued my interest really was when I was elected to the school board in Cape Elizabeth. It was around then that I decided to pursue my doctorate, although I think when I began I was thinking more about making sure I had the credentials to teach at the college level.

Q: What in you first two careers prepared you for work as a superintendent. 

A: As a psychologist, I have a lot of background with kids, and how kids learn. Then, there’s my experience in managing budgets, planning, and employee education. All of those things were sort of prerequisites that I already had. It was just a matter of moving a lot of what I had already been doing into the K-12 system.

Q: What do you bring to the superintendent’s chair from your time in private industry.

A: I think what people might look at as being unique in terms of the way I lead schools is that, while I understand learning and instruction and what good teaching is, I also understand that we need to ensure that we have the confidence of the taxpayers, that we are using our resources to the best advantage. I think there is a suspicion on the part of the public as to whether public schools appreciate and are accountable for the resources they have.  All of that makes complete sense to me.

Q: How does accountability impact decision making in public schools?

A: Well, for example, look at the success that Falmouth has had. Falmouth has just been named by Forbes magazine and by Great Schools as the No. 1 school district in the country – in the country – and here it is in Maine.

Q: is any of that success due to your five years at the helm there?

A: [laughs] Between you and me, I would say that it is completely based on my five years there, because that report was based on data that was at least a year old, anyway. I'm not bragging, but I do believe the distinction was that we began planning more like how businesses plan. In fact, I think we planned in a better way, because I’ve learned a lot about strategic planning and I basically used in Falmouth, and in Belmont, a model I designed specifically from my experience of what didn't work in business.

Q: Some people dismiss the idea that schools are best run by folks from the business world, because schools are not a capitalist enterprise. Do you agree?

A: Partly. It’s not that business models don’t work in schools. They do. It’s just that bad business models don't work in schools. But it’s true that these are not businesses, just by the very nature of what we do in schools. There are 3,400 kids here. Every single one of those kids is a unique individual and that adds to the complexity of what this organization needs to do to meet those needs, whereas, in business – and I was in manufacturing and engineering – the needs are very basic, very precise, very scientific.

There’s a science involved in managing schools the right way, but it’s also an art form, because we’re working with a complexity that’s always changing. We are making adjustments sometimes on a daily, and certainly at least on a weekly basis. With that complexity comes a significance that is truly more important than in business, because we are impacting a whole generations of people.

Q: So, how do you tackle that complexity, given your business experience?

A: First off, I think I have learned a tremendous amount from my colleagues who have never been in anything else but public education, and I think they’ve learned a lot from me. But, to answer your question, I don’t think things need to be studied for a year before we do things. I don’t believe we need to be adopting every new program that comes along thinking that it’s the ultimate solution for getting kids to do math better, or whatever it might be.  That’s the nature of public educators, who feel they need to take everything on. One of the things that I’ve done is say, “Look, first we’re going to have a dialogue with this community.”

Q: What does that public dialogue look like?

A: The way I do planning is very accelerated, it really happens very quickly, but it starts with a conversation. I use this thing called “Open-Space Technology,” which essentially invites community members to come together. It includes students, parents, teachers, school leaders, elected officials, appointed officials, informal leaders within the community, religious leaders, business leaders, senior citizens, everybody. The agenda is actually created at the time of the meeting, because too often people go to meetings and essentially all they’re asked to do is to rubber stamp something that’s already been decided. People, I think know that, but don't know of any other way.

Q: Have you done it before? How does it work?

A: Yes. These community dialogues happened every 18 months, so we will have one here, likely in October, and it will basically provide a direction and articulate our priorities for 18 months.

Q: So, what happens to the wants of the community when it comes time to decide on an operating budget?

A: If you watch school districts struggle through their budget development process, the reason they struggle, I think, is because they have not clearly articulated their priorities. As much as they say they have, they actually, probably haven't. I think there is a tremendous amount of inefficiency that comes from trying to budget based on the loudest voice, rather than on a true priority that’s been set by the community. So, I think a community dialogue helps to engage the public to shape the future for this school department. And then we use that roadmap to guide everything we do.

Q: These community dialogues help you to focus spending? I would think they’d actually pull you in different directions.

A: As a public entity, we are already subject to all these things coming at us, whether you have some people are over here squawking about implementing another new math program, or over there about buying iPads for every third-grader, or whatever it is. Schools, I think, can get into a state of paralysis because goals become bit of a free-for-all, instead of a well-articulated, priority-based, sequential plan. By establishing what the community says is important, it not only simplifies and adds efficiency to the budget process, but suddenly things start making sense to people, who say, “Oh, I get why your doing that.”

In terms of budgeting, engaging the public helps us to establish priorities and allocate resources, and to prepare to talk to the public about how those resources are connecting to the work that we are doing.  I think the public has a right to understand that. When it’s all education jargon, and things that quite frankly don’t make sense to the general public, they have a right to be a bit skeptical. We need to be very straight talking, telling them how their money is being spent, and demonstrate to them that we are using their money effectively. That part is certainly the same from my business background.

Q: Do you have any examples of what these community dialogues accomplished in your previous districts?

A: In Belmont, out of the community dialogue came a real focus on the way that we were doing professional development. Both young and experienced teachers were saying that, despite our best efforts, development days were really a waste of time. A lot of these teacher workshop days, it’s mostly just someone up there just blah-blah-blahing, and even if its motivational, the motivation last for maybe 47 minutes after you leave, and then its gone and you forget about it. Or, at best, the next day you laugh about it, or complain about how horrible it was. Now, a wasted day like that in a school district like Scarborough, could probably be worth, I’d say, conservatively, $100,000. That’s what you’re spending by occupying the teacher’s time.

Q: I’ve often heard parents and other taxpayers complain about teacher workshop days, but I’m surprised to hear the same complaints from inside the bubble, so to speak.

A: If you look at any of the research in the books I have on my shelf – and I’m a big research addict – we know that professional development days, in the way that 98 percent of the school districts across the country do it, is a complete and total waste of time. That’s absolutely documented. There is very, very little that is  of value, and even less that ever gets carried over into making changes in terms of what’s happening with kids.

Q: Once everyone accepted there was a problem, how did it get resolved?

A: Well, my whole focus is on, what are we doing? How is this organization structured and how do we operate in the way that has the greatest impact on kids’ learning?  So, we worked with our teachers union and the leadership team and basically created a whole new design for professional development, which allowed our teachers to sort of self-select into what we called “professional learning teams.” We took the two days of professional development time and said, you’ll still get paid for them, you’ll just spread those hours out over the school year, and school will end two days sooner, which didn’t disappoint anyone.

We split the teachers into small teams of four to five people, each, to do independent action research after school on a topic or question they had that impacted what they were doing with their kids. And the teams couldn't be willy-nilly about it. They had to be very thoughtful about it, to come up with a research that had direct applicability to what they were doing in their classrooms. They had to identify the data they would use to determine if what they tried did or didn’t work. They all were required to show how what they studied impacted student learning.

Meanwhile, I taught a graduate course to a facilitator for each team on how to work the year-long process of managing their teams.  At the end of the year we had a conference, where we came together and every team had to produce a presentation of their work. Without a doubt, that final meeting was one of the most meaningful educational experiences that I have ever had, and the feedback from teachers was exactly they same. It was just so heartening to be a part of this workshop conference with 55 teams all coming together and sharing what they'd learned, and sharing in the enthusiasm if these teachers. It was an incredible amount of energy.

Q: Do you plan to implement a similar change in Scarborough?

A: That will depend on the community dialogues. It’s a bit of an overwhelming change. I want it to be successful. I want people to get their heads around it, as opposed to something that’s imposed on them. Still, I suspect that it’s something that we might be doing next year.

Q: And what are your thoughts on Wentworth Intermediate School. Is there a real need for a new building?

A: There’s a huge, huge need. I would have to say that I was shocked and surprised when I toured that building at the kinds of structural issues they have. This is, by far, of the three communities that I’ve worked in, the worst building that I’ve seen.

Q: So, how do you convince taxpayers to vote for the multi-million-dollar bond that will be required to build a new school?

A: I would say the biggest selling point for the project is the fact that there are significant health and safety issues that the building presents which are not resolvable, that are irreparable. Right now, the town and the taxpayers are continuing to invest significant dollars into a building that is sort of a money pit, really.