PONTIAC – The main question everyone is asking — in Pontiac and Lansing — is why Superintendent T.C. Wallace Jr. wants to leave the larger Lansing school district with his $175,000 salary for Pontiac, a district half its size.
Wallace, one of two finalists for the position of Pontiac school superintendent and president-elect of the Michigan Association of School Board Administrators, answered the question in a second board interview recently. He said a member of his family, whom he did not identify, has health issues. Another source said the family member lives in Oakland County.
The Lansing superintendent, who also answered questions at a community forum Monday morning from audience members such as Art Fowlkes and Irma Collins, president of the Pontiac Teachers Association, said he wants to be part of carrying out the restructuring underway to downsize the district to a more efficient size, redesign the high school, improve student achievement and help eliminate the $12 million deficit.
On Thursday, Feb. 26, the second of two finalists will visit the Pontiac district. He is Brian Ali, a special assistant to the superintendent of the 3,600-student Mattesen Consolidated District No. 162 in Illinois and a former four-year superintendent of Kankankee, Ill.
A community forum with Ali is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Thursday, where Ali will be open to questions from members of the audience. He will have a second interview by the school board from noon to 1:30 p.m. the same day.
Both men have doctoral degrees. News paper reports from previous districts indicate both men have been successful in raising student achievement, but there was controversy in their districts that remained even after they moved on to their current positions.
Wallace, who moved to sic Lansing from Mount Clemens, where he served 10 years as superintendent, is in his second year in the new position. He said when he arrived, the district had a $10 million deficit and now it has a balanced budget plus a fund balance.
Wallace is in the midst of several initiatives in Lansing to improve student achievement. Scores aren’t in, according to Lansing school board President Hugh Clarke, so it is too early to say whether the initiatives worked. However, he is optimistic they will because so much work has been put into the effort.
In Mount Clemens, the prosecutor did an investigation of finances at the request of the board president last spring after Wallace and his business manager, Venkat Saripalli, left for the Lansing district, although some board members were critical of the move — one calling it a witch hunt.
“In a letter to top school officials, Prosecutor Eric Smith said a two-month investigation into concerns raised by the district determined past administrators may have lacked “good business judgment” but also pointed the finger at school board members, reported the Macomb Daily in July 2008. “Many of the school district’s accounting problems stem from lax internal controls and a failure by the board to exercise responsible fiscal oversight,” Smith said in his letter. Wallace said at Monday’s interview that the prosecutor’s report was fair. However, he said neither he nor Saripalli were ever contacted by the prosecutor nor informed of the investigation.
However, he said, “A clear and unequivocal decision was reached that clearly exonerated” them.
“But (Smith) hammered home that there were issues at the board level,” Wallace said, noting the trustees who asked for the investigation “didn’t know the snake they picked up was going to bite them.”
Wallace said he traditionally brings Cabinet members and other administrators from one district to another when he makes a change because he tries to help them progress professionally, and they ask to come with him. That is one reason, he said Monday, that there is a “firestorm brewing” in Lansing about his possibly leaving. He said trustees are afraid he will bring some of his cabinet to Pontiac, where all cabinet members and the superintendent are in interim positions.
In an interview last week, Clarke was not happy that Wallace had decided to apply for a job in Pontiac with two years left on his contract and new initiatives underway there. He said he was taken by surprise.
The resulting controversy in Lansing brought television and newspaper reporters from that city to the superintendent’s forum in Pontiac on Monday.
Clarke said Wallace “has two more years on his contract that we anticipated he was going to honor.
“He would leave the district in bit of a turmoil. You can certainly expect turmoil and concern by staff. But we are an experienced board and we’ll hit the ground running,” he said.
Collins, who is president of the teachers’ union, said she didn’t feel Wallace answered her questions about why he would come to Pontiac.
Collins and others in the district have alleged that it is “friendship, kinship and relationship” in Pontiac that is bringing Wallace to the Pontiac district. Collins and others said Wallace has worked with former Superintendent Mildred Mason, who left the district in controversy, and that his wife, Rose Wallace, worked for Mason.
In addition, Mason had at one time proposed the board hire Wallace for quality control, but the suggestion never went further, said Board President Damon Dorkins.
But Dorkins said there is no nepotism or cronyism involved in the district’s interest in Wallace. He pointed out Mason is no longer with the district and said no one on the board has connections with her that would influence them to hire Wallace.
Wallace touted his experience as superintendent at several districts, his ability to connect with the community and his affiliation with state and national organizations that can help gain resources for the district.
Collins disagreed.
“I don’t think he has anything to offer the district to get us out of the situation we are in right now,” Collins said, alleging that Wallace, who earned his bachelor’s degree in 1967, has “ideas all in the past.”
“He is in the sunset of his career,” she said. “Why leave Lansing unless he is going to work until he is 100?” Wallace said he would stay in Pontiac no longer than six years, then retire.
Wallace suggested the board talk to the many leaders in state education who know him and know of his work if they want to be confident of his abilities.
Contact Oakland Press staff writer Diana Dillaber Murray at (248) 745-4638 or diana.dillaber@oakpress.com.
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