Thirty-four years after he walked through the front door at North Side High School to begin his career as a math teacher and coach, Mark Daniel is right back where he started.
When the Fort Wayne Community Schools board hired Daniel to succeed retiring Superintendent Wendy Robinson last week, it marked his third appointment to a top spot. He left North Side in 1995 to become a principal at Leo Junior-Senior High School, moved on to lead a 2,400-student district in Dowagiac, MI before becoming superintendent of the McLean County Unit District 5 in Normal, IL.
Daniel believes his transition from tiny Dowagiac to the larger Illinois Unified district 5 will prepare him for the even-larger FWCS:
“You have to start making the mindset shift, if you will, to CEO of an organization. And you learn to utilize your executive cabinet, understanding their functions, trusting their expertise. At the same time, as a leader, you need to have an overall handle on what is happening in the district, and are we heading down that road together and meeting the goals and the visions of the district. Now, that’s what I learned at Unified and, believe me, it was a learning curve.”
Daniel was an FWCS teacher in 1989 when the school district settled a long-running lawsuit with Parents for Quality Education and Integration that launched Fort Wayne’s now-thriving magnet school and racial balancing program for district schools. He believes the district’s teachers and administrators learned valuable lessons from its beginnings:
“We felt as if each student should be learning, and it’s our obligation as teachers to ensure that each student is learning. I know some people will say, ‘well, you know, it’s OK for a student to fail.’ It’s not OK for a student to fail. And having that, as we started to integrate more and more our schools and we see that continuing, that is the strength of integration. It does create a melting pot. It does create diversity.”
Daniel is a huge fan of project-based learning, which is the organizing principle behind the very popular New Tech Academy magnet program at Wayne High School. Project-based learning is a teaching method by which students, often working in teams, spend considerable time investigating, researching and solving complex real world problems, and presenting the results of their work.
“It’s; how do you create a school system that is first of all inclusive, that second of all is willing to ensure that students are truly engaged in the classroom? And you have to create that culture. So I think Dr. Robinson has been very strong in that area.”
Daniel also sees project-based learning as a way to address the competitive environment in which public schools find themselves as Indiana’s voucher program continues to drain public funds from public schools, and give the funds to private and parochial schools to enroll students.
“I think public dollars should go to public schools. So, I’ll just make a very strong front on that one. However, we know we also are in competing times. So, therefore, we address that competition. You need to start marketing yourself like the parochial schools do, just like the private schools do. You have to do those things. And, bottom line is, you have to have programs that truly benefit kids. I don’t think you can ignore it. I think it’s here; certainly in the state of Indiana. So, embrace it. It’s a challenge. It’s also an opportunity.”
Daniel said he is also very conscious of the need to help teachers gather increasingly sophisticated data on student learning that doesn’t overwhelm them with expectations.
“You have to find ways to utilize data that is meaningful for the teacher. It has to impact the instruction. It has to be something that is actually usable. So, what are we doing to make it usable?”
As school districts around the country begin gearing up for the 2020-2021 school year, COVID-19 continues to dominate the national discussion. Daniel said all possible options are on the table for discussion. He said school officials must figure out how to transport students in the largest public district in Indiana with six feet between each child, a daunting task. They must also figure out how to return in the fall if the district has to do so with an exclusively online program.
“Because COVID is happening, it’s very real. And I think there are to major concerns for our parents; Do you have a healthy and safe environment? And will my kid be learning, can my kid learn? We need to answer those questions. I don’t think online learning is effective. Not nearly as effective as students in the classroom.”
Even with the challenges and uncertainty, Daniel is happy to be back home.
“I’m just very encouraged by the enthusiasm I’ve seen. I’m very humbled and very honored. And, this is on the shoulders of Dr. Robinson. The history of Fort Wayne Community Schools. And, I feel as if we, as a community, are ready to step forward and continue to improve our educational programming for all of our kids.”
