From 1976 to 2001: Superintendent McNeal Was Here at the Beginning
September 7, 2001 - One year after being named Superintendent, Bill McNeal is helping to mark the 25th anniversary of the Wake County Public School System. Following his first teaching stint after college in Danbury, Connecticut, he and his wife Faye moved back to their home state of North Carolina and began an academic career that took him from the classroom to the superintendent's office all in the same county -- a rare accomplishment.
As the Wake County Public School System celebrated its 25th anniversary, McNeal reflected on the road that brought him to the Raleigh City Schools, the turbulent merger of that system with the Wake County system, and the changes he saw from the classroom and the administrator's desk.
 Principal Bill McNeal greeting students at Martin Middle in 1983. |
Coming Home and Getting Started
"We worked in Connecticut for three years, coming right out of college at North Carolina Central University where we met," said McNeal. Wanting to raise their family closer to home, Bill and Faye (now a guidance counselor at Enloe High) applied to several North Carolina districts, searching for one that would hire both of them as educators. Following an offer from the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school district, a package arrived from Raleigh. "When we had met with Raleigh City Schools and (assistant superintendent for personnel) Bill Frietag, he told us that they could hire me but they didn't have a position for her," McNeal recalled. "When the contract came in the mail, they actually had two contracts -- one for me and one for her. Well, Faye looked at the map and decided that Raleigh was closer to her home in Pinehurst than Winston-Salem. That's how we ended up in Raleigh, and we've had no regrets."
Johnny Farmer, principal of Carroll Junior High (now Carroll Middle) hired McNeal to teach eighth-grade social studies in 1974. Meeting Farmer proved to be a revelation.
"According to what I was told, he went through the applications in the Personnel Office and decided that he wanted this black male teacher named Bill McNeal. So I'd never met Mr. Farmer. And to give perspective, in Danbury there were absolutely no black administrators. None. When I arrived in Wake County I went over to Carroll to meet Mr. Farmer, and my assumption was that he was a white male. So I walk into Carroll, and the first person I see is a coach by the name of Buddy Stewart (now the athletic director of Enloe High), and I said, 'Are you Mr. Farmer?'" Stewart said, "No," as did Carroll's assistant principal. The school secretary told McNeal that Mr. Farmer would be back soon, and he and his wife took seats in the office. A tall African-American gentleman soon greeted them: Mr. Farmer.
"The most impressive thing I remember about coming to Wake County early on was the number of African-American administrators," McNeal said. "There were Johnny Farmer, Norma Haywood, Lawrence Williams, George Foxwell, Johnny Burke, Grant Beatty and Flo Turner -- to name a few. I mean, it was just a long list of African-Americans who were administrators, and I'm coming from a system, even though it was smaller, that had absolutely no African-American administrators. I said to myself, 'My! This is some school district that they have tapped the resources of that number of African-Americans.' And these were quality African-Americans who understood education and knew about master schedules and instruction and so forth.
"I think that was probably the first time that I became interested in administration, because of these role models. It had never dawned on me until that point in time."
McNeal had taught for two years in Room 200 at Carroll Junior High when Johnny Farmer was promoted to area director for Garner. Assistant principal Carlos Hicks, who had a reputation as a jokester, became the new principal and told McNeal he wanted him to be his assistant principal. "I said, 'Look, Carlos, I don't have time,'" said McNeal. "Next thing I know, papers are coming that say that I'm actually going to be the assistant principal. I went home and asked my wife about it. She had one question: 'Does it pay more money?' The answer was yes. She said, 'Take it.'"
"And that's been the way she's approached things since then," McNeal laughed. "'Does it pay more money? Yes. Then take it.'"
 |
The Systems Merge
While McNeal was teaching and taking his first administrative position, a seismic shift was taking place in Wake County's schools. Spurred onward by the business community, the separate Raleigh City and Wake County school systems were moving toward merger. One of the factors encouraging merger was declining student enrollment in the city system, which preyed on McNeal's mind: as a teacher with less seniority, he would have been vulnerable to any staff reduction. "The business community was worried about economic development, economic vitality, and what was in the best interest of the school districts," McNeal said. To say the public was skeptical would be an understatement. "I'm not sure they were looking at the big picture, but merger was sold as a solution to declining enrollment, that it would save the taxpayers money because now we could utilize the facilities much better. Back then, as we were closing schools in the city, we were looking for additional space in the county, and it was all coming out of the taxpayer's pocket."
Despite public opposition, the two school systems merged into the Wake County Public School System. "It was a time of upheaval, and there was strong leadership. The leadership on the part of both school boards, the leadership of the united board, the leadership of the administrators trying to hold it together and keep it focused on the bottom line, that's what I remember," McNeal said. "When we talk about bold leadership -- it would have been easy to fold your hand. But there were some people who climbed out on a limb and said, 'This is a good thing.' And it was not a popular limb. Had they not done that, I'm not quite sure what this district would look like today. It may still have been merged, but certainly we would not be as far down the road in dealing with some of the significant issues as we are.
"The most vivid image that I had, was that of Roland Danielson, who served on the new merged board. I remembered hearing him on the radio, pleading for the people not to personally attack board members. And he became very emotional because he started talking about someone who had killed his dog, poisoned it because they were unhappy with this whole idea of a merged system. I'll never forget that."
Following merger, student and staff assignments changed dramatically within the county. Teachers who had been at their schools for years were moved in order to fill downtown schools and desegregate. "So you had these teachers who moved to new locations, you had these students who had moved to new locations and some of them came with a degree of anger because they had just been uprooted from their school and said, 'you're going to this school over here.' A significant number of black kids were moved. There was upheaval in the black community. There were people like Vernon Malone, Ralph Campbell, and Harold Webb and others who were meeting and helping the black community deal with this upheaval, and taking the position, 'This is a very good thing for the black community in the long run.'"
McNeal noted that 25 years later, some members of the African-American community question whether merger has helped black students achieve in the classroom as much as they anticipated. "I think black students have fared better than they would have had we not merged," McNeal said. "But what we have found is that before any child can reach his or her full potential, you have to look at all of the deficiencies and assets that affect that child. Until you deal with the deficiencies then it makes it very difficult for the child to make the level of progress and sustain it over a period of time."
Taking the Reins for the First Time
The first superintendent of the Wake County Public School System was Dr. John Murphy. McNeal came to his attention early on -- and the young assistant principal was afraid it would cost him his career.
"John Murphy's son Billy attended Carroll," said McNeal. "Billy was a track star. I first met John Murphy when Billy got into a fight. I had Billy pulling weeds around the school because of his role in the fight. I knew his dad would not be happy. And I remember the day in the office when the principal was away and I was in charge. I was standing in the office with my back to the door, with a number of people in the office, and I remember everybody getting quiet. Well, they didn't get quiet when Carlos Hicks, who was the principal, walks in. I turn around and there stood John Murphy. And I'm thinking, 'Uh-oh. This guy's coming to fire me because I forced his son to pull weeds around the school.' He walks in, he says, 'Can I see you in your office?' We go into the office, and he says, 'You did the right thing.' And he was done, and he left."
Soon after, McNeal saw John Murphy again at an athletic banquet McNeal was hosting. "Right after that, John Murphy offered me a school. I had been an assistant principal for a year and a half. Didn't think I was ready, and as I look back on it, knew I wasn't ready. He made me principal at East Garner Middle School and he set up a time for me to come to the Superintendent's office. I met with the assistant superintendent for personnel, Bill Freitag, and we went into John Murphy's office.
"We're sitting there, and John Murphy's making us wait 20 minutes -- he's sitting right there in the office, but he's working on something else -- so for 20 minutes we're just sitting there, looking all around the room. And I thought that he was going to ask me several profound questions. Well, John Murphy finally got around to looking at us, and I had practiced for almost a full week getting ready. I had gone back to my instructional materials, tried to get national research data; I was prepared for whatever he was going to ask me because I wanted him to be aware that he had put the right person in charge of the school. He looked at the assistant superintendent of personnel, and said, 'Are the papers in order?' He said yes. John Murphy looked at me and said, 'Don't try to do it all. Delegate.' The meeting was over.
"I debated whether or not I was just going to say, 'Well, hold on, Dr. Murphy, let me share with you all this knowledge,' but I decided that I wouldn't do that, so I left the office," said McNeal.
Looking back on his first years in Wake County's schools, McNeal recalled being impressed with the number of African-American administrators in the Raleigh and Wake County systems, their detailed focus on improving instruction, and John Murphy's insistence on using data to drive decisions. "The thing that I remember most about John Murphy was that he was the first superintendent that came with the idea that you need to post the data," he said. "John Murphy had these charts where he would compare the academic progress of each school. He was, in my opinion, a man ahead of his time."
McNeal was principal of East Garner Middle from 1978 to 1982, followed by a stint as principal of Martin Middle from 1982 to 1985. He then arrived at the school system's central office as assistant superintendent for administration. He was promoted to associate superintendent for auxiliary services, then held the position of associate superintendent for instructional services from 1992 to 2000. From December 1994 to June 1995 he served as interim superintendent, a role he would later take on permanently when the Wake County Board of Education hired him to succeed Dr. Jim Surratt as superintendent.
 Superintendent McNeal working at his desk in 2001. |
The Magnet Revolution
In the 25 years after the merger, there was no greater change in the Wake County Public School System than the expansion of the magnet program in the 1980s under the superintendency of Dr. Walter Marks, McNeal said. It was a controversial move. "To bring 27 schools on line as magnets was significant," he said. "There was heavy rumbling and anger and frustration, there was a media circus over whether the magnet school courses were fluff, and whether they were working or worth it. There was heavy anger that these schools were pulling the best teachers and that money was being poured into them: 'What about my school and where my child goes?' was the refrain."
Although the magnet program became a bright star for the school system, it was also a part of what was, for McNeal, its darkest moment. Questions arose over whether the cost of the magnet program was being correctly reported, and Dr. Marks eventually resigned. "There were a number of other administrators who paid a terrible price," McNeal remembered.
Emerging from the controversy was a magnet program that benefited the entire school system, traditional and magnet schools alike, as well as Wake County taxpayers thanks to using the magnet program to increase enrollment to underutilized schools. "Every time you close a school, with the growth in our county, you're building a school somewhere or you're overly subscribed somewhere," McNeal said. "Also, the innovative, creative programs of magnet schools have moved this county forward because, with innovative programs, others schools have learned. Through the magnet competition other schools have gotten better. And through choice our community has been more willing to get involved. Once they get involved with a selected school, they're happier. Those are the things that make us unique."
Brightest Days?
The expansion of the magnet program was not the only major change Wake County's public schools saw in their first 25 years. WCPSS was the first in the state to offer year-round programs, supported teachers with a school-based management philosophy and a school improvement process based on measurable goals, established a Department of Evaluation and Research that improved accountability and openness, adopted sophisticated business management practices based on the Malcolm Baldrige quality improvement model, and grew to a population of over 100,000 students.
"I'm not saying this because I'm superintendent now," McNeal said, "but we're enjoying our golden days right now. We aren't fighting major racial issues. Discipline is not the number one item on the agenda. Test scores are high, morale is up, and we had an opportunity to get our whole staff together to talk about family" at the school system's full staff meeting and pep rally at the Entertainment and Sports Arena. "We're enjoying our brightest days right now."
So, if these are the brightest days, what does the Wake County Public School System do for an encore?
"We prove that if ever there was a school district where no child has been left behind, we should be that district," McNeal said. "We ought to be the star that others look to for guidance. We have all the ingredients: we have a quality staff, an intelligent board, a community that expects the best from us, and we probably have some of the best support from our community that any school district can hope for. And we have students who are interested in achieving. You put those ingredients together, you're supposed to be the leader.
"That's our role, and our rightful place, and we should do that. No excuses. We should be the leader."