Payzant Wins Top Grades in Annual Report From Board

With nearly four years as superintendent of the San Diego city schools behind him, Tom Payzant on Tuesday received a strong endorsement of his performance from his bosses--the members of the Board of Education.

Payzant’s annual job evaluation mixed praise for his leadership style with a sizable list of his accomplishments during the past year. They included improving school discipline and reducing absenteeism, expanding drug education programs, implementing several new education programs, conducting a projection of the district’s expanding enrollment in the next 14 years, and increasing already strong ties with the community.

“The entire board feels that Tom continues to do an excellent job,” trustee Dorothy Smith said.

The four “strengths” listed on the evaluation focused on Payzant’s style as a manager. They included his “candor and willingness to confront issues--and, at times, unhappy individuals and community groups--in an articulate, forthright manner,” his ability to delegate responsibility, and his ability to discuss issues without “undermining” personalities.

Payzant begins his fifth year as superintendent of the 113,000-student school district Nov. 1, when his salary will increase to more than $95,000 a year.

The board also instructed Payzant to improve his efforts in three areas. The superintendent must restore community trust damaged by the disastrous start last fall of the district’s new computerized busing program and avoid committing himself to more work with other urban superintendents at the expense of district responsibilities, the trustees said.

The board also told Payzant to improve communication with principals and teachers, and shore up communication between the various divisions of his administration.

During the past year, Payzant has been publicly and privately criticized by teachers and administrators for running an aloof administration that fails to involve employees at the sites in major decisions. A study of principals and some Education Center administrators released in February showed a lack of trust in top management and a need for better communication, said Irvin McClure, executive director of the district’s administrators association.

But McClure said Tuesday that morale has probably improved among his organization’s 600 members since the survey was taken last November. Administrators, whose salaries are linked to teachers contract negotiations, were concerned with money last winter, McClure said.

Teachers, however, have another view, said Gail Boyle, president of the San Diego Teachers Assn.

“I think that, in general, teachers don’t feel that this district is run any better than it was when (former Supt. Tom) Goodman was here,” she said. “From their vantage point, a substantial number of them would view it to be worse.”

Boyle said teachers, who understood the structure of Goodman’s administration, still don’t comprehend Payzant’s system. “Now it doesn’t work the way it used to, and when one tries to figure out who’s in charge or who’s on first, it’s not always clear,” she said.

Boyle added that while teachers believe they won a generous 16.5% salary increase over two years, they believe Payzant made them walk picket lines and carry placards to get it.

“I think most of the teachers feel that they had to fight too hard to attain what was rightfully theirs,” Boyle said.