Rick Doll will take the reins of the Lawrence public school system Wednesday.
He’s done his homework on the district. Since he was named in March to replace Superintendent Randy Weseman, Doll has spent many days in the district, in hopes of ensuring a smooth transition.
I caught up with Doll last week, as he prepared for his new job.
Q: Have you gotten to know Lawrence better since it was announced you’d be the new superintendent?
A: I’ve been in Lawrence probably on average two to three days a week for the last three to four weeks attending training sessions. I’m getting more comfortable with people and schools and feel good about it.
Q: hat have you learned about Lawrence and the district since the announcement?
A: Mostly just picking up on the simple things like where all the schools are and getting to know leadership, getting to know building principals, getting to know district officer personnel. Kim Bodensteiner (chief academic officer) and Frank Harwood (chief operations officer) have been very helpful in integrating me into the system. I came up for the day-to-day when they show all the achievement data for the district and engaged in conversations with district leaders about our achievement results. Just that kind of stuff is what I’ve been doing.
Q: What are your plans for Wednesday, your first day on the job?
A: Move into my office.
We actually have our organizational board meeting that night, and so my first order of business … will be to get through that first board meeting on Wednesday night.
Then I plan on spending a lot of time in the schools and in the community. I am having discussions with each individual board member so I can get their perspective on the school district and the direction we need to go. I’m going to ask each board member to suggest three other individuals that I talk with in the community, so my big desire is to just listen to a variety of people in the community talk to me about the Lawrence district.
Q: What are your upcoming challenges?
A: We have some achievement gap issues that we have to look at, not only just raising everyone’s achievement level but also closing some gaps that we have with student achievement.
There’s always facility issues. We have to finish up the stadiums, obviously, in time for fall sports season. Budget is huge, obviously. I know that negotiations continue to be ongoing, so we’d like to get a good settlement with teachers before too long.
Q: What are your overall goals?
A: Always, your overall goal is to improve student achievement, as it relates to not only the tests, Kansas assessments, but also to improve student achievement on the life skill curriculum, those things that truly are going to make kids successful in life. That has to be our No. 1 focus. To get there, that means I need to be doing some really good communication with not only school people but also with the community so I get a better understanding of community expectations.
Q: What are you looking forward to?
A: I’m looking forward to new challenges. I’m looking forward to interacting with school personnel but also with community members. I’m looking forward to the diversity that Lawrence offers. Looking forward to being part of the community.
Q: How would you describe your leadership style?
A: My leadership style would be described as pretty eclectic in that I have lots of leadership tools that I could use. I can be authoritarian if I need to be, but really prefer to be collegial. Most of the time I’ll be in that collegial leadership mode, but recognizing there are times when you have to go into that authoritarian mode, but I try to get back out of it as soon as I can.
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Made_in_China (Paul R. Getto) says…
Good luck, Dr. Doll. Welcome to Lawrence.