I became superintendent in July 2001, succeeding a superintendent who had the confidence and respect of the district. He was wonderfully supportive of me, and we shared a common devotion to our schools and students. A difference in our personalities was that he had a strong top-down leadership style. With the accountability of No Child Left Behind, schools needed to shift more emphasis and energy to curriculum and instruction. The theme of my first year’s state of the district speech was “Rolling Up our Sleeves to Improve Student Learning,” and it was my plan to keep working hard at minor changes and show necessary growth every year. The reality was that only 20% of our students were proficient in the core curriculum. However, given our