Going Out On Top -- Kent Schools Chief George Daniel Steps Down, Leaving Legacy As Well As Agenda For Successor

Time to say farewell -- Kent residents and school employees will have a chance to thank retiring Kent School Superintendent George Daniel at an informal reception next Monday. The gathering is from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. in the multipurpose room of Martin Sortun Elementary School, 12711 S.E. 248th St. --------------------------------------------------------------- George Daniel was in his first year as Kent School District superintendent when he found himself in the middle of the biggest crisis of his career.

Two elementary schools, this newspaper reported, had been locking unruly children in small dark rooms whose doors were scuffed with the marks of kids who had tried to kick or scratch their way out. Some appalled critics likened the "cell rooms" to the infamous tiger cages in which the South Vietnamese government once held its political prisoners.

Before the newspaper even hit the street, the then 41-year-old superintendent said the practice was wrong and ordered it stopped.

"I learned early in my career there are no secrets in the school business," Daniel recalled last week. "If something's wrong, you might as well let everybody know it immediately because they're going to know anyway."

During the 21 years he has presided over one of the fastest-growing school districts in the state, he has had his share of controversy. He started his job by slashing a budget that was deeply in the red.

Levies and bond issues haven't always passed on the first try. Negotiations with employee unions have been tough. Parents have complained about sex education, the lack of buses to take children across heavily traveled roads, and changes in school boundaries.

Above all, school officials have had to contend with skyrocketing enrollment, going back to the voters repeatedly for taxes to build more schools. Since Daniel came to Kent in 1971, the number of students has shot up from 14,000 to 23,000.

Sprawling from the edge of Federal Way through Kent to the rapidly developing Soos Creek Plateau, the Kent School District is the fifth largest in the state.

But as Daniel, 62, prepares to retire from his $118,000 job at the end of June, the hallmark of his tenure is a degree of stability and community support many other districts can only envy.

"There's a tremendous amount of confidence and a tremendous amount of pride and a tremendous amount of trust in the Kent School District," says Dr.Ed Kosnoski, a four-term school-board member who gives Daniel much of the credit for the district's political calm.

"I love George," says district PTA President Karen McClune. "I think he's a fantastic person. I'm sorry to see him leave."

"You can go to him to talk about a problem and work out a solution," echoes Nettie Harper, president of the teachers' union, the Kent Education Association. "He's always been open to that."

Jim Hager, superintendent of public schools in Beaverton, Ore., will succeed Daniel July 1. Hager, like Daniel a personable man, is widely praised for his collaborative style of leadership.

While no one predicts a radical change in direction, Harper expects Hager to accelerate the "restructuring" of Kent schools that has begun with a pilot program giving more decision-making power to principals, teachers and parents in individual schools.

Since leaving Spokane County's small West Valley School District to take the helm in Kent, Daniel has been credited with:

-- Hiring top-notch administrators, delegating responsibility to them and supporting them when they decided to move to other districts. At one time, 14 former assistants to Daniel were working as superintendents elsewhere. "Without doubt," he says, "I've trained more superintendents than anyone in the state of Washington."

-- Creating a magnet alternative school at Spring Glen Elementary, a building rented from the Renton School District. Many of the educational innovations pioneered at Spring Glen will be duplicated at Sunrise and George Daniel elementaries when they open next September. (The school board, accepting the suggestion of a number of students, named Daniel Elementary in honor of the retiring superintendent.)

-- Launching an aggressive effort to recruit minority employees and train non-minorityemployees to work with a student body of increasing cultural diversity.

-- Putting parents on committees reviewing the budget, redrawing boundary lines when new schools are built and making other recommendations to the school board. When the Kent School Board adopted new elementary boundaries this spring, not a single parent showed up to complain.

"We had really listened to the public," Daniel says of the recent boundary changes. "That's the secret to the business these days. You have to really be out there talking to people."

LEARNED TO SHARE POWER

It hasn't always been easy for Daniel to share power or to listen to opinions at odds with his own. Parents sometimes "felt run over" by the take-charge superintendent, who had to be reminded by the board to pay more heed to the public, recalls Ken Geisen, a former board member and a friend of Daniel.

Spring Glen Principal Del Morton remembers Daniel's management style as "very top-down" 20 years ago. Today, Morton says, the superintendent is much more comfortable delegating authority to principals and management teams of their choosing.

Daniel - who generally prefers "George" to "Dr. Daniel" - never stopped speaking his mind. "He was clearly the leader in the district," says Searetha Smith, Kent's curriculum director from 1989 to 1991. "For me that's a workable style. I appreciated knowing the convictions of the leader and what was important in the organization. He set direction."

PREFERS `PERSONAL TOUCH'

During his final year, Daniel has continued to visit classrooms and schools regularly. But in a district with 31 schools and 2,300 employees, he says, "It's hard to have that personal touch. That bothers me more than anything else. . . . I used to know everybody's name."

He's been in the job long enough, he says, and it's time for new leadership. Daniel and his wife, Jo, who retired from her job as an Auburn schoolteacher last year, plan to split their time between their home in Meridian Valley Country Club and their second home in Palm Desert, Calif.

With a second grandchild due in July, they are likely to spend most of their time in Kent. Daniel plans to take it easy for a few months before deciding whether to start a second career, possibly in business.

That decision won't be hard, if his idea of retirement is correct: "I have a feeling I'm going to hate it."