Berman’s assignment: Assess financial situation

Sheldon Berman has some homework to do this summer.

The Eugene School District’s new superintendent flew into Eugene on Monday and officially began his new job, and the difficult task in front of him, on Tuesday.

“I’m excited to be here,” said the 62-year-old Berman, who comes to Eugene after a challenging four years as superintendent of Kentucky’s largest school district, Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville, where the school board voted 5-2 last November not to renew his contract.

“Transitions are always a challenge,” Berman said during an interview Tuesday in his new office at the district’s Education Center, the office vacated Thursday by his predecessor, George Russell. “I loved the work I did in Louisville. I think we accomplished a great deal, but I really look forward to living here.”

Berman said getting a grasp of the Eugene district’s financial woes is perhaps his top priority this summer.

“That’s high on the agenda,” he said.

Berman started Tuesday by taking a tour of the Education Center and meeting employees. He said he will meet with Chief Financial Officer Susan Fahey this week and has asked staff to prepare some documents for him to begin a “deep analysis” of the budget. The district is needing to close a record $21.7 million shortfall for 2011-12.

The shortfall prompted the permanent closure of four elementary schools last month, and the layoffs of 68 teachers and as many as 77 classified employees. More layoffs could happen before school begins in September.

Another priority this week, Berman said, is to meet with Associate Human Resources Director Christine Nesbit, the district’s lead bargaining negotiator, to discuss the district’s failure to get 2011-12 concessions from Eugene teachers this spring. The sides aren’t slated to meet again until Aug. 31, and any contract changes will have to be retroactive.

Asked if it’s critical to strike a deal before school begins in September, Berman said: “You’d always like to do that, but that won’t be the case here. I think a good agreement can come at anytime.”

Berman said he plans to spend his first weeks on the job “really listening” to other administrators and staff and school board members.

Berman, who prefers to be called “Shelley,” was hired by a unanimous vote of the Eugene School Board on March 16 after a national search process that began in September, a month after Russell said 2010-11 would be his final year. Berman was hired over two other finalists, Kalispell (Mont.) Superintendent Darlene Schottle and Des Moines (Iowa) Chief Academic Officer Michael Munoz.

Despite his controversial four years in Louisville, Berman came highly recommended from Iowa-based search firm Ray & Associates amid a reputation as an innovative educator who is keen on diversity.

Berman might have fallen out of favor with key board members in Louisville, but he had the backing of many there who felt he was the victim in a no-win situation.

“Mr. Berman’s tenure was cut short for all the wrong reasons,” said a June 24 editorial in Louisville’s Courier-Journal newspaper. “A largely dysfunctional school board — motivated in some cases by personal grudges and agendas, spooked by a noisy minority opposed to transporting students to achieve diversity and equal opportunity, and rattled by the low achievement scores that bedevil every urban district in the nation — seemed incapable of working with the superintendent on a common strategic plan.”

The editorial praised Berman for leaving behind a “strong platform — a new framework for teachers to design lessons with rigor and meaning, sophisticated methods to measure performance, reduced class sizes and dropout rates, freshman academies, new magnet schools and career-themed high schools, and much else.”

Two days before Berman’s first day on the job in 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Jefferson County Public Schools’ three-decade-old plan of assigning students to schools by race was unconstitutional. Berman’s first task was to assemble a team of lawyers and district staff members to come up with a new plan that was based on geography instead of race.

The controversies aside, Berman said he is proud of his record in Louisville, and says the district is better off now than when he came on board.

A list of accomplishments during his four years in Louisville, he said, includes reducing class sizes; establishing CARE for Kids, “a social development and school culture program that fosters caring communities in classrooms and schools and encourages greater student engagement and connection with school”; adding 20 school nurses; improving curriculum and instruction; starting 22 new magnet schools; and increasing the numbers of high school graduates going on to college.

Prior to Louisville, Berman was superintendent of the 2,800-student Hudson (Mass.) School District from 1993 to 2007, and was named Massachusetts Superintendent of the Year in 2003.