Mon, Jul 06, 2009
 Roger Pfeuffer, retiring TUSD superintendent, gets a hug from Suzanne McFarlin, who was on the Bright Ideas panel that reviewed ways to help TUSD. Pfeuffer's supporters will remember him as a leader who worked to improve TUSD's image; his detractors might recall him for often having to explain the district's missteps.
David Sanders / arizona daily star
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The turbulent times of Roger PfeufferArizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 06.22.2008
When officials hired Roger Pfeuffer four years ago to run Tucson's largest school district, they hoped he'd bring a sense of calm to a chaotic situation.
The ensuing years turned out to be anything but, as the Tucson Unified School District emerged from its decades-old desegregation order, battled massive budget problems and federal investigations, and weathered a community storm that began after attempts to close four elementary schools.
Board members and administrators call Pfeuffer (pronounced Fifer) an advocate for transparency and a man who worked to improve community perception of TUSD.
Parents and students, though, may remember him for rushed decisions that should have included more public input and for having to explain the district's missteps time and again.
Even before incoming superintendent Elizabeth Celania-Fagen takes the reins from Pfeuffer on July 1, his legacy will literally be imprinted on TUSD.
"He was the one that came up with the 'Us in TUSD' slogan," Governing Board member Adelita Grijalva said. "He put in a lot of work to improve TUSD's image."
"Celebrate the US!" is the phrase on TUSD business cards, letterheads, official documents, even its Web site. The phrase represents Pfeuffer's hope of instilling pride in all the district's stakeholders, from students to administrators.
But the view from outside TUSD headquarters, 1010 E. 10th St., is different.
Some parents remain largely cynical of Pfeuffer's work and especially sensitive to the changes he attempted in his final year. The proposal to close four elementary schools, Pfeuffer's swan song, may well prove to be his legacy.
"A lot of parents lost trust in him because we felt he didn't take parents, students, teachers and the community into consideration with the decisions he made," said Cindy Rivera, president of the Safford Elementary School Parent Teacher Organization.
Rivera said Pfeuffer was great when he was her fifth-grade teacher at Holladay Intermediate Magnet School. But when Pfeuffer recommended school closures as a cost-savings measure, she felt he never had the answers to parental concerns.
Lorenzo Guzman, 11, said he remembers Pfeuffer for wanting to close his school, Ochoa Elementary.
Despite the problems, Pfeuffer deserves credit for attempting to address long-standing questions about school space and resources by recommending school closures during his last months on the job, said Steve Courter, president of the Tucson Education Association, the district's teachers union.
"I have to admire him for not spending his last months with his feet up on the desk," he said.
When former Superintendent Stan Paz resigned in April 2004, he was one year into a massive, districtwide reorganization that was criticized for a lack of communication and explanation. The changes alienated the public and TUSD employees alike.
At the time, Pfeuffer had been retired for two years, but Grijalva said she suggested him as an interim superintendent.
"We really needed him," she said.
Pfeuffer, who'd last worked as an assistant superintendent, was trusted, familiar with the district and respected, she said.
"I think he started off with a calming influence," Courter said.
Stacey Delisle, a TUSD parent, said she wasn't surprised when Pfeuffer became superintendent. He was ambitious, she said, recalling how she first saw him in the early '80s when he spoke to her sixth-grade class while he was principal of Pistor Middle School.
"He was firm, but he engaged the students. You knew you could go to him," she said.
Privately and in public, Pfeuffer said most educators, including himself, enter the profession with noble intentions.
"People still go into education because they are idealists," he said. "People still go into education because they believe in helping people."
Pfeuffer's approach to education is grounded in an idea set forth by Horace Mann, considered the father of the American public education system.
"You are trying to educate a population to participate in a democracy," he said. "You're trying to create an educated electorate that can self-govern with the Constitution."
Eight months after he took over, the Governing Board decided to forgo a national search and ask Pfeuffer to remain.
He worked to win public support for the 2004 bond and budget override election and rebuilt the administrative infrastructure Paz had dismantled. In November 2004, the bonds won with overwhelming public support, though the budget override was never approved by voters.
Pfeuffer notes the bond issue as one of his successes.
Initially, he recalls, he thought he'd lead TUSD for no more than a couple of months, but within a month, he said, it became clear the Governing Board wasn't going to immediately seek a replacement.
"So I talked to them about what I saw ahead. One of the first things that I said I wanted to stay for was getting through the first graduating class that had to pass Arizona's Instrument to Measure Standards," the AIMS test, Pfeuffer said.
His desire to help the district pass its first class under AIMS meant at least two more years with TUSD. Also within his first year as superintendent, he noted, TUSD's Governing Board decided it wanted to end the 30-year-old desegregation order, which had led to the crosstown busing of students and the creation of many of TUSD's magnet programs.
Along with Pfeuffer's list of accomplishments as superintendent, he has a list of what he considered "missteps."
For example, asking for individual employee contributions to offset the 2005 budget. Then there were the state and federal investigations of TUSD's technology department and leadership, and the district's inability to obtain federal funding for its computer and telecommunications networks.
Pfeuffer noted the district's decision to use state funds designated as teacher bonuses to pay for contractually obligated raises, as well as a $700,000 accounting error involving health insurance, which affected some employees' paychecks, as other "missteps."
"There was so much anger among employees, it led to the strong reaction when negotiations began," Courter said.
Nearly 40 percent of district teachers — 3,500 employees — called in sick one day in September, prompting the early closure of six high schools and effectively crippling the district for the day. No organized action of that size had been seen in TUSD since the late 1970s.
The "blue-out," as it was called, prompted Pfeuffer and district officials to create a labor council to improve relations with employee unions. However, representatives of TUSD's blue-collar union stormed off the council after bus monitors were fired in May.
Numerous other controversies brewed during Pfeuffer's tenure, such as a controversial political speech by activist Dolores Huerta at Tucson High Magnet School, the deportation of a family of illegal immigrants after a student was caught with marijuana at Catalina Magnet High School and, most recently, a debate surrounding TUSD's Ethnic Studies Department.
Public perception, Pfeuffer said, remains one of his greatest concerns.
"I regret the fact that the community perception of TUSD is more negative now than it was at least a couple of years ago," he said. "I know, internally, it was in worse shape than it is now, but, externally, in terms of the general public, I'm not sure what the difference is, but it's not what I'd like it to be."
● Contact reporter George B. Sánchez at 573-4195 or at gsanchez@azstarnet.com.
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