wendy.pagonis@roanoke.com 981-3209

CHARLOTTESVILLE - Leaders with the University of Virginia's business and education programs believe they have the answer for schools struggling to meet federal standards.

They're called "turnaround specialists," and they are the educators who know how to pour information into students' minds. Turnaround specialists make schools efficient, educational institutions, help teachers get their jobs done and, along the way, they raise test scores.

This summer, 10 principals from across Virginia became the state's first graduates of the Virginia School Turnaround Specialist program at UVa. If the principals show success this school year, the program may go national. Two of the principals are from Roanoke: Sharon Richardson of Lucy Addison Middle School and Melva Belcher of Westside Elementary School.

Both women are at schools whose test scores need improvement. The pass rate on state tests for students at both schools is among the lowest in Virginia. Many of the students come from families with low incomes, which brings a host of community problems into the classrooms but also attracts extra federal dollars to offer the children additional help.

Now even principals get additional help.

"None of these 10 turnaround specialists can do it on their own," said Jo Lynne DeMary, Virginia's secretary of education. "There are hundreds of children who will benefit from the efforts we put in."

Politicians and academics will monitor just how seriously these administrators apply their new knowledge when school begins in the fall.

Gov. Mark Warner is behind the new program at UVa with the hope that it will give principals the tools they need to make schools successful.

Belcher has no doubt that test scores at Westside Elementary will rise this coming school year.

"We're going to make our mark," she said last week in her new office. Belcher took over as the school's principal July 1. The dust hasn't had a chance to settle and, according to Belcher's plan, it never will.

Belcher has done this before.

As principal of Lee M. Waid Elementary School in Franklin County, the same school she attended as a child, Belcher raised test scores and brought it into full state accreditation. More importantly, she said, Belcher made the school's success self-sustaining.

Even though she is gone, Belcher believes Lee Waid will continue to have high test scores because of the teams she created at the school.

She plans to do the same at Westside.

"If I can get a reading specialist, a special education specialist and the needed instructional assistants - they call them aides here - for each grade level, I don't think we'll have a problem," Belcher said.

The additional staff will help keep students in the classroom when they need extra help rather than teachers having to send them to another room. And the specialists could focus on remediation during the school day instead of waiting until after school. Belcher knows it works. What she learned at UVa validated her plan, she said. But she also could pass along advice to others.

"It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage," she told the room full of educators and businesspeople gathered at UVa on Tuesday.

She needs the teachers to buy into her plan. That's part of the lesson taught in the turnaround specialists program. One way to begin gathering support is to show the plan to other educators and administrators in a school, so UVa encouraged Belcher and Richardson to bring their co-workers along last week.

And that's what they did. Richardson was unavailable last week, but three administrators from her school attended a weeklong portion of the program. Assistant principals Gloria Randolph-King and Robert Johnson, as well as Jonathan Pait, the director of the after-school program, circled around a table to hash out their ideas before bringing them before administrators from other districts. Academics and businesses can offer ideas, but people who work in the schools see what works. An influx of computers and software is not an easy fix. Scott Crawford, Roanoke's coordinator of social studies for K-12, told the class technology is a great tool, but the world's greatest leaders didn't know how to use PowerPoint.

The greatest leaders knew how to lead people, which is what this program is teaching principals to do under the stresses of raising scores and teaching struggling students.