| Rockwall superintendent looks for new challenges 04/12/2001 By Jeff Mosier / The Dallas Morning News
ROCKWALL – Superintendent Joe Neely led the Rockwall school district through passage of its largest bond package knowing that he probably wouldn't be around to see any of the schools built.
He asked administrators to standardize the curriculum across campuses but, again, wasn't sure he'd be there to see the results. He won't be.
"If you look at my history, it's not one of someone who stays around for a long time," said Dr. Neely, who recently announced that he will leave in June.
The lifelong educator, who is finishing this third stint as a public school superintendent, said he told the school board in 1998 that he would stay at least three years. He knew that after that, he might look for new challenges, as he has throughout his career.
Dr. Neely spent five years in two high-level jobs at the Texas Education Agency in Austin, six years as head of a TEA service center and two years as an educational liaison to the governor's office.
His time in Rockwall equals his tenure as head of the Sam Rayburn school district near his birthplace of Bonham and is a year more than he spent in the Cedar Hill district just south of Dallas.
Rockwall school board member Len Lowry said he knew it would be tough to keep the former No. 2 TEA official for long.
"We knew that someone of his stature had other opportunities out there pretty much all the time," he said. "All of us were hoping that it would go longer than three years, but we knew that was always a possibility.
"It will be difficult to find someone of that stature," Mr. Lowry said.
Dr. Neely, who has friends in top administrative posts in the University of Texas and Texas A&M systems, said he plans to take a higher-education position, though no specific job is on the table.
When he decided to leave his deputy commissioner job at the TEA to take the top position in Rockwall, Dr. Neely said he wanted to get closer to the basics of education.
"You enjoy being as close to the action as you can get," he said. "That's in the local school district."
For more than 21/2 years, he has been in the middle of the action, trying to manage a district that is adding enough new students each year to fill an elementary school. He shepherded through a $139.2 million bond package in February that should pay for five more schools, including the district's second high school. He started a three-year program to standardize the curriculum among all the schools and ensure they meet state requirements.
"It shouldn't matter which school you go to; you should learn the same thing," he said. "I don't think that was the case before."
He also is planning to add money to the district's reserve fund, something the district hasn't done in the past. Finance director Doug Ochandarena is putting together a five-year financial plan to create a reserve that he said needs to be about $4.2 million as insurance for emergencies and for the fall, when there is little cash flow.
Dr. Neely said that in his old TEA job, he frequently dealt with districts that had troubled relationships between the school board and superintendent.
The Rockwall school district showed him a different picture.
"The relationship that I have had with the board, I can't say enough good things about it," he said. "It's almost unbelievable that in three years there has never been one cross word."
Dr. Neely said that despite some speculation, he has no plans to take a high-level job with former TEA chief Mike Moses in Dallas. Dr. Neely's friend and former boss is the Dallas schools superintendent.
"Why would I do that?" he said. "If I'm going to be in that type of role, then I probably have the best job in the state right here."
Instead, Dr. Neely said, he wants to work on teacher recruitment and educational leadership. He said he likes the recent trend of bringing teachers and administrators in from other professions and wants to work on innovative ways to attract people to education.
"It disturbs me," he said, "when even our own teachers counsel their children to chose a different profession."
Staff writer Jeff Mosier can be reached at 972-771-5191, ext. 106 and at .
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