Building teamwork to Accomplish the game Plan

“Being a leader in education is like being a head coach,” says Lee Wise (PhD ’78), superintendent for Dinwiddie Public Schools. During his years in Iowa, Wise not only taught and held administrative positions, but he also served as head coach for several sports and assistant coach in others. Today, he applies his athletic principles to the operation of one of Virginia’s most ethnically and economically diverse school districts.

Just as a coach must understand what is going on in the heads of his players to be successful, Wise has always felt the need to “walk in other people’s moccasins.” Upon graduation from Iowa, Wise taught courses in everything from physical education to geography, spending time with different subjects and different students, including special needs children. Before becoming a superintendent, he served as a principal at the elementary, middle, and high school levels and worked as an administrative consultant. Such experiences help Wise stay aware of the different needs of people at various levels of the education system as he creates policy.

Another principle Wise draws upon is the need to have a “game plan.”

“The most important role superintendents can play in the larger educational picture is to provide schools with a vision and a way to get there,” he says. At Dinwiddie Public Schools, this road map includes a Standards of Learning plan that exceeds the accountability of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, and a long-term budget that conserves resources amid shrinking revenues for the people who need them most—the students. “You have to do what’s best for kids,” Wise maintains. “Not parents, not administrators. Every kid can succeed. It’s just a matter of strategy.”

Finally, Wise believes in teamwork. “It’s the same for superintendents as it is for coaches and band directors,” he says. “If you get good people to work with you, you get a good effort.” For Wise, that includes everyday citizens as well as parents, teachers, and administrators. “It takes 50 percent of the vote to pass a bond issue,” he explains. “It’s my biggest hope that I can influence community attitudes, and provide a culture that values education as something important to all of us.”

Wise feels his time at Iowa endowed him as fully as his athletic career to meet such challenges. He learned much about leadership from professors Jerry Kuhn, Walt Foley, Bradley Loomer, and George Chambers, whom he got to know personally. He continues to network with other Iowa graduates—many of whom are now superintendents in other parts of the country. –by Elyse Fields