Dr. Robert J. Andrzejewski, superintendent of the Red Clay Consolidated School District, has announced his retirement at the end of this school year, his 11th at the helm.
Under the leadership of Andrzejewski, Red Clay has redrawn elementary school attendance zones to send young children to school closer to home and escape the remnants of the 1978 federal busing order, has approved the charters of Delaware Military Academy, Odyssey Charter School and Delaware College Preparatory Academy and resurrected Henry C. Conrad High School in the form of the magnet Conrad Schools of Science.
He was an assistant superintendent overseeing administrative services when the Red Clay Board of Education granted the first charter in the state to The Charter School of Wilmington and established the magnet Cab Calloway School of the Arts, which both occupy the Wilmington High campus.
In his first year as schools chief, Andrzejewski oversaw the implementation of the high school component of Cab Calloway’s sixth through 12th grade format.
Andrzejewski said he is proud of all Red Clay schools, with their good teachers and principals overseeing the education of children in the state’s second largest school district.
The district has been embattled since a state Financial Recovery Team was assigned to Red Clay in May, 2007. By August of that year, the team had indefinitely assumed control over expenditures and hiring with the assignment of consultant Frank Rishel on site. By December, the team had revealed that, among other things, Red Clay had spent too much of its local tax money on administrators and other staff members – the same thing that got the state’s largest school district, Christina, in trouble a year before Red Clay.
The report said the district had committed no wrongs in its hiring practices, but whenever a district hires above what the state will pay for, it had better have enough of a cash reserve to cover the costs.
This school year, the district does, and Andrzejewski believes that will allay concerns and allow the Financial Recovery Team to make its exit.
“When you’ve been around 11 years you’re going to have bumps in the road, not that this wasn’t a significant bump,” he said. “But I would hope that when people look at my 11 years they see we have some of the top schools in the state and the country. A lot of that happened with my team. What we went through is nothing compared to AIG, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae or Lehman Brothers.
“We have some of the best school in the state,” Andrzejewski said. “In the 2008 ratings, we had Charter at No. 1, Cab Calloway No. 2, Delaware Military No. 3 and A.I. High at No. 4 in math.”
Andrzejewski has also acknowledged other Red Clay schools, like Thomas McKean High, John Dickinson High, and Warner Elementary, have struggled. He made some administrative changes in them, and is optimistic about their future.
“I wanted to find the right leaders to turn around these schools,” he said. “The Red Clay community has a lot to be proud of. We have a lot of quality teachers and principals. I may be the head coach of the team, but those in the field are making a difference.”
