Vallas in with roar, out with rancor

The Philadelphia School Reform Commission was prepared to fete departing chief executive officer Paul Vallas at its board meeting. There would be a resolution, applause, smiles, pictures - a celebration of his five years at the helm of the nation's eighth-largest district.

The 1 p.m. event had been touted to the media the day before, and television cameras and reporters awaited Vallas' arrival in the district headquarters auditorium. The five members of the commission, his bosses, were waiting, too.

But Vallas, feeling he had been unfairly scapegoated and tarnished for the district's budget deficit, had left the building an hour and a half earlier and had no intention of returning.

"I'm not coming. I'm done. I'm out of the building," he told a staffer by cell phone before the event Wednesday.

Later, with the meeting under way and the commission still waiting, a top aide called again, frantic to get him to return.

"I don't need to go through a phony resolution thing," Vallas told the aide.

"I'm tired," he said, turning his attention to a reporter. "I've got this [heart] arrhythmia. I'm beat up. I've got a headache. I've got boxes all over the house. . . . That's why I don't want to put up with any bulls-. I just want to go and get out."

Vallas, 54, who came to town in July 2002 like a dynamo bringing a wave of optimism to a beleaguered district, left office last week at odds not only with the board that hired him but also with Mayor Street. He will start as superintendent of the New Orleans district tomorrow.

The unrest has come despite his tenure's plethora of accomplishments, which have earned the district and him national recognition in recent weeks: substantial increases in elementary test scores, a proliferation of smaller theme-based high schools, a standardized curriculum, more certified teachers, and more programs for the youngest students and those most disruptive.

But those accomplishments became clouded by a $73 million "surprise" deficit that surfaced in the fall in the district's $2.02 billion budget and the ensuing power struggle between Vallas and his commission bosses. The district's money crunch is expected to force layoffs, the loss of supplemental arts programs, and other cuts in the months ahead.