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Massie resigns
Interim superintendent leaving DCPS in mid-April
(Published February 23, 2004)

By KATHRYN SINZINGER
Staff Writer

Elfreda W. Massie has submitted her resignation as superintendent of D.C. Public Schools.

"She gave it to me some time ago, I informed the rest of the [school] board ... but I was hoping she would change her mind," said Board of Education President Peggy Cooper Cafritz.

Massie, who is expected to leave the school system and return to a private-industry job in the education field in mid-April, was out of town and unavailable for comment at press time.

She was awarded a one-year contract in December to serve on an interim basis, following the resignation last Nov. 14 of former superintendent Paul L. Vance. Vance brought Massie into the school system last summer to serve as his chief of staff.

Political squabbling, which has recently intensified, over who should run the city’s public schools is believed to be at the heart of Massie’s decision to leave. In his annual State of the District address earlier this month, Mayor Anthony A. Williams renewed his previously thwarted effort to take away day-to-day operational control of the schools from the school board. In recent days, D.C. City Council education committee chairman Kevin P. Chavous has proposed removing authority for security at all school buildings from school officials’ control.

The current uncertainty over how the public schools will be governed when a portion of the District’s home rule charter expires this summer is expected to make the search for Massie’s replacement difficult. A charter amendment that was proposed by the mayor and council and approved by voters in June 2000 created the current school board structure as a four-year experiment, leaving it up to the council to decide this year how the school system will be run.

Cafritz said a national search to seek a replacement for Vance has not yet gotten off the ground – a situation she largely attributed to the mayor and council members, who insisted on being part of the search committee, failing to agree on a common date for the committee to meet. She said the three school board members who are on the committee have selected a firm to help with the search.

"We’ve got to get started," she said.

Cafritz said Massie "has agreed to stay a couple of days a week" beyond mid-April to assist in the transition to a new superintendent.

Sharon Gang, a spokesman for the mayor said Williams had no immediate comment on Superintendent Massie’s resignation. Chavous was traveling and unavailable for comment at press time.