Make no mistake: Seattle schools chief is decisive, driven, direct

Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson steps away from the cameras, where she's just announced which Seattle schools she thinks must close. It's a highly charged issue — the biggest one she's faced since arriving here a year and a half ago — yet she shows no strain.

Asked how much sleep she's lost over it, Goodloe-Johnson replies, "What you need to know about me is that I don't lose sleep."

She just doesn't worry much, she later says. "Worrying is not a strategy," she says. "It just makes you sick, stresses you out."

Now about halfway through her second school year in Seattle, Goodloe-Johnson works hard, talks fast, makes her calls and moves on.

With the school closures, she weathered a challenge that had vexed her predecessor and, without looking back, she's launching into a great deal more.

It's hard to get a sense of her at school-board meetings, where she usually reads from notes or a PowerPoint presentation. But from her office, she's shaking up everything from how teachers are hired to what will be taught in classrooms across the district.

School-board member Harium Martin-Morris once introduced her as someone who's going to "kick butt and take names" — an old Southern saying, he says, that refers to people who take charge.

That no-nonsense manner has impressed some and alienated others, especially those who say she appears coldhearted to the pain that closing schools causes for students and their families.

"People want to feel at least as if she's moved ... that she's feeling it, that it's hard for her," said Maria Ramirez, a parent activist and PTA leader. "We didn't feel that."

Supporters, however, say that while Goodloe-Johnson may be quiet in public, she's smart and driven. She thrives on challenge — even on early-morning walks with her husband when, to his dismay, she always wants to climb a hill.

Her style differs from that of her predecessor, the warmer Raj Manhas, and from former superintendent John Stanford, whose charisma rallied the city behind him.

"Maria's leadership is more calm and reserved, but I think there's a whole lot of strength there," says George Griffin III, chair of the nonprofit Alliance for Education, which supports Seattle schools.

And some welcome her decisiveness even if they don't agree with all her decisions.

"She's managing the district as it has not been managed in six years," says Charles Mas, a parent and district-watcher. "I'm glad to see someone take the reins of this runaway horse."

Goodloe-Johnson likes to say she doesn't believe in failure.

"I believe that you do the work, and you do the right things so you can be successful," she says. "You don't just sit back and say, 'I can't do this.'

"You figure out what you need to do and you do it."

A new start

When Goodloe-Johnson started work as superintendent in July 2007, confidence in the city's schools was low. The fights over school closures under Manhas had stretched over three rounds, two citizens committees and many contentious meetings with a fractious school board.

Hopes were high that Goodloe-Johnson, with her long experience in public schools, could rebuild the trust and confidence the district had lost in all that turmoil.

In the past 20 months, she's shown a number of times that she has mettle, especially as she staunchly emphasized the need to close schools, largely to save money.

More important, she's set an ambitious course for Seattle that turns away from the path the district has pursued for roughly a dozen years, starting with Stanford, who thought the formula for success was in placing more power in the hands of individual schools, run by principals as CEOs.

For Goodloe-Johnson, the key instead is a strong central office that sets goals and holds everyone accountable for reaching them.

Her plan — still in the early stages — calls for setting specific, annual targets for the district as a whole and for each school, in test scores, graduation rates and other areas.

And when schools fall short of their goals, she says the district will step in sooner than it has in the past.

She's also overhauling the program for special education and English-as-a-Second-Language students, based on the recommendations of outside audits.

She's doing so much that many teachers say it's too much. Olga Addae, Seattle teachers union president, understands Goodloe-Johnson's urgency but says, "we need to prioritize, especially in tough economic times."

Public-school career

Even as a child, Goodloe-Johnson set goals, and she was the kind of child who finished her chores right away on Saturday mornings rather than procrastinate.

She was a Girl Scout, a musician in a number of band ensembles and a straight-A student through high school.

A field trip to a hospital psychiatric ward in high school helped her decide to become a teacher. The people in that ward "were just written off," she says, "not given any opportunity to learn."

She became a special-education teacher, and she has spent her entire career in the public schools. She's worked as a high-school principal, secondary-education director, assistant superintendent, then superintendent in Charleston, S.C.

She's also been chosen for two national leadership programs, run by organizations that select people who work inside and outside schools. Organizers said they liked her sense of urgency and her willingness to break tradition.

"She's not going to get bogged down indefinitely in a hand-wringing exercise that doesn't allow her to take action on behalf of kids," says Tim Quinn, of the Broad Superintendents Academy, one of those programs.

In Charleston, Goodloe-Johnson was the first woman and the first African American to hold the superintendency. It was a tough post where she clashed with the board and racial politics were raw.

When asked to apply in Seattle, it was a no-brainer, she said. She saw it as a chance to spend more time on education issues and less time dousing political fires.

Plus, she says, she wanted her daughter to grow up in a more diverse city than Charleston.

Runs a tight ship

Principals appreciate her accessibility and the depth of her classroom experience.

She answers their calls personally, holds regular talks with small groups of teachers and visits a couple of schools every Thursday when she can.

At principal meetings, she holds a jar of Popsicle sticks, a common teacher tactic. When she picks a stick, the person whose name is on it must speak up or answer a question. It's a way to keep principals alert and make sure that she hears a variety of viewpoints.

She acts on problems immediately. When she noticed an especially disorganized classroom during a recent school visit, she told the principal it needed to be cleaned within a few weeks. Then she dispatched Chief Academic Officer Carla Santorno to make sure that happened.

But in polite Seattle, she is uncommonly direct, leaving some to feel like they haven't been heard.

At a parent-teacher meeting at Ingraham High in northwest Seattle, she flatly tells a mom who complains about long Metro bus rides home for her son after sports practice that participating in sports is a family choice.

Her handling of the school closures, in particular, opened some rifts. The closures hit especially hard in the African-American community. Goodloe-Johnson recommended — and the school board approved — closing the African American Academy, which community leaders had worked long and hard to create nearly two decades ago.

One of those leaders, Gayle Johnson, says the closure process was sloppy and that Goodloe-Johnson failed to convince people why it was necessary.

"As a leader of the district, it's your responsibility to mobilize the community around the vision of what you're trying to achieve," Johnson said.

Goodloe-Johnson says she does understand that closures are hard, but she's confident they will help all students, even the ones who have to switch schools.

She's not about to stop working toward that end. She never stands still, and can't even sit still. In meetings, when someone starts to cover ground she's heard, she looks through her mail or reads messages on her BlackBerry.

One day years ago, Santorno and Goodloe-Johnson — then just Goodloe — were heading to a conference in Washington, D.C., when their cabdriver stopped in the middle of the road to argue with some pedestrians.

Santorno stayed in the car, but Goodloe-Johnson jumped out. She told the driver he had a fare to fulfill and he'd better get back in the cab.

As Santorno remembers it, Goodloe-Johnson then turned to the pedestrians, telling them they surely were on their way somewhere, and they'd best get back to that, too.

Linda Shaw: 206-464-2359 or lshaw@seattletimes.com