Brown's Tenure Sees Vast Improvements At OSSD
BEN GARRETT -- Independent Herald Staff
"A challenge."
That's how Mayfield Brown describes the job that lay before him when he was lured to Oneida from his post as superintendent of schools in Clay County 13 years ago.
Brown, who will step down next month after 12 and a half years as Oneida's Superintendent/Director of Schools, sat down last week to discuss his tenure with the Oneida Special School District. It was a 13-year period that saw Oneida go from the brink of beign shut down to widely recognized as one of the state's best school systems. The turnaround has garnered national attention and ranks among the best success stories in education history.
Brown, who grew up in Clay County - one of the state's few that is more rural than Scott, has always been in education. After 14 years in the classroom, teaching math and science in both Clay County and Illinois, Brown was elected superintendent of schools in Clay County in 1980. He was in the midst of his third term when he received a call from then-UT president and former Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander.
It seemed a small school system in East Tennessee was struggling for new direction. Threatened by the state's fire marshal's office for their facility to be condemned and the system consumed by the county school system, Oneida residents had put together a valiant fight to raise funds and save their schools. They had raised some $200,000 and had been promised funding from Howard Tibbals, but needed someone who could come in and guide the system in the right direction.
"He said, 'well, it's a challenge,'" Brown said of his conversations with Alexander. "He said, 'for lack of funding and a lack of facilities, they're going to lose their school.' And so I agreed to come up and meet some people."
Originally intending to come to Oneida only as a facilitator - "I really didn't want to be superintendent; I was tired of it" - Brown met with board members Steve Phillips and Mike Baker. A week later, he met with the entire board. Soon thereafter, he stepped down from his post in Clay County and made the move to Oneida. Six months later, he found himself in the position he said he didn't want; superintendent of schools.
"I wasn't all that gung-ho about taking it, but I agreed and I'm glad I did now," Brown said. "It's been good to me and my family here and the people have been great."
The criteria set forth by Tibbals in order to receive his annual donation of $250,000 - Improve attendance, improve the dropout rate, raise scores, decrease the number of students taking remedial courses in college - were lal met. The annual contribution continued for the 10 years Tibbals had promised and, three years beyond the original 10, continues today.
Meeting those criteria, of course, took work. Brown wasted little time setting about the task before him and his staff.
"You had some excellent teachers here (in 1991)," Brown said. "But morale was down. One, the facilities you were in, you were burning up in the summer, you were freezing in the winter. The classrooms were crowded and there just didn't seem to be much hope. I think the problem was frustration and a lack of hope, which affects everything."
A big reason for the change, sid Brown, was the willingness of the community.
"You had so mnay people willing to get involved," he said. "They were not going to lose this school. The people in this community were going to do anything they could do. There's a good work ethic there."
Today, the Oneida Special School District is far removed from the Oneida Special School District of 1988, when a shutdown seemed almost inevitable.
Gone is the leaking, crumbling facility that housed the elementary and high schools, with "kickout" fire escapes (plywood over windows that could be kicked out in the event of a fire), faulty heating units and un-air-conditioned days of late spring and early fall. Here are seperate, up-to-date, technologically-equipped facilities for each the elementary, middle and high school. Gone are the days of 40 percent of graduates in postgraduate studies, 40 percent of students in remedial courses and 15 computers in the entire school. Here are the days of 90 percent of students in postgraduate studies, only five percent in remedial courses and more than 400 computers in the classrooms - one for every three students and a networked computer sitting on every teacher's desk.
"Academically, we've raised the standards," Brown said. "We've raised them a lot. The expectations are much more now than they used to be. When you go into a math class right now, I can guarantee you that we're expecting twice as much as we did 15 years ago."
One key, said Brown, is building a good base, then expanding upon it.
"Start in preschool, and build the base, then you can stretch the top," he said. "This couldn't have happened in three or four years."
For all the successes that have taken place at Oneida over the past 15 years, Brown, whose guidance has directed a willing community and determined board of education, is reluctant to take credit.
"This was not by anything I did," he said. "You had supporters in there that found ways to make this happen. My job was to stand out of the way and let them make it happen."
Brown calls the Oneida Special School District's success, "a remarkable community story."
"I know communities that have had more resources to work with than we've had that have failed miserably," he said. "The one thing we have in this community and this county, they are a competitive people. I don't care if we're playing checkers, whoever you sit down to play with is going to try to beat you."
The key, he said, is aggressiveness.
"You can get in the boat and sit there, or you can get in the boat and go somewhere," he said. "I have to go somewhere. I hope if I brought anything to the table, it's that. Because if you're not going forward in that boat, I guarantee you that boat's not going to set there very long until it starts drifting backwards."
Reflecting back on his career here, Brown said he is satisfied with his job and what the school system has accomplished.
"There's been so many moments I've been blessed to have, I couldn't pick any one (defining moment)," he said. "I've made some tough calls but I've made the calls I thought were right."
Asked about a low point in his career, Brown pointed to the deaths of people within the system.
"Coach May's death, some students in accidents, a suicide. That hits you," he said. "That hits the family, and you're helpless. You look and say, what could we have done? And there's no answer. That will put you down on the floor right quick."
Today, Brown said he feels like he has achieved his limit, leading to his resignation, which becomes effective on December 31, when he will begin employment with the B. Ray Thompson Foundation.
"I like to build, and right now I don't know anywhere else to take this school," he said. "There's things that can be tweaked, but bring in somebody that does know somewhere else to take it and let it grow. And they will."
Challenge, said Brown, is what drives him.
"I really come out of a family that likes challenges. My first cousin, Watson Brown (head football coach at the University of Alabama-Birmingham), he could go to any university in the United States to play quarterback. He chose Vanderbilt. Then he went into coaching and coached his way back to Vanderbilt. Now that's a challenge."
His other first cousin, Mack Brown, is head football coach at the University of Texas. Mayfield also has a brother who has coached and won more athletic contests than any other coach in TSSAA history.
"I'm kinda the lost sheep that had to go somewhere else to find a challenge to do something," he laughs. "But we're a family that doesn't mind taking on things. We grew up and were raised to do that. Our grandparents made sure their kids, our parents, got an education, which made sure we got an education and could move on out of where they were when they grew up. So in our family you're expected to be successful in whatever you do, even if you go to Vanderbilt to coach."
As he prepares for his final weeks on the job, Brown stresses again that any success within the system is due to the community.
"This school couldn't have happened without that pride that's in this people here and the pride towards that school that goes all the way back to 1915 (when the OSSD was founded). It started before I came.
"A lot of people say, well, everything's going bad. And a lot is going bad. But there's a spark in this community. And that spark will flourish."
Brown also credited the Town of Oneida and the Scott County School System for their cooperation with the Oneida Special School District.
As the board works to choose a successor, Brown said he is staying out of the way, but does offer a bit of advice.
"I think the first thing you've got to have (to lead this school system), I don't care how smart they are, whatk ind of experience they have, they have to be able to fit into this culture. That's got to be recognized right away. The family has to fit in. Then they need to find somebody that's a good communicator and motivator. When I hire teachers,the first thing I look for is heart. If there's no heart, you don't want them. They have to like people and like little people. Then you get into understanding No Child Left Behind and that sort of thing and the educational portion of it."
Brown said when he leaves his office on December 31, there will be no looking back.
"I'm going to miss it. I'm going to miss these people. (But) once I go out, I won't meddle in it again. That's the only thing that would be fair to whoever comes in. They have got to do their thing. I've been an Indian for 13 years and I'll still go to ballgames, still read about the Scholars' Bowl, still read about the scholarships, and it'll make me feel good. I really want it to do well, and I think it will. If it doesn't, I didn't do much of a job."
As for the success, he said, all it took was standing back and watching the pieces come together.
"It's almost like the hand of God was on tis place when I came in and it all just began to fall all the way up. I don't know why, don't understand why. But it wasn't any of my abilities that made this happen. I hope I was smart enough to stay out of the way, keep good people around me that had good hearts and let that flow on down into the schools. I guess if I'm proud of anything, I'm proud that I don't think there's a building you can go into that you won't feel the love of the teachers towards the students."
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