School Supt. Davis leaving for Krum

mikeperry@alpineavalanche.com

Mike Davis, who has led the reformation of Alpine schools over the past five years, is leaving Alpine to take the superintendent's job at Krum, one of the fastest growing school districts in the nation.

Davis has been credited with leading AISD out of a financial quagmire. Today, the district stands on firm financial ground and test scores continue to rise.

There is absolutely no animosity involved in the move, Davis said. "We love it here and I certainly could have stayed here. However, our two kids live in the Dallas area. We want to be close to them."

Krum Independent School District has 1,600 students compared to a bit under 1,000 in the Alpine ISD.

Krum was - and, in some ways, still is - a small agricultural community, 6 miles west of Denton. It's also part of the fastest-growing area in Texas, the Fort Worth-Dallas Metroplex, or as Davis puts it, "They probably used to be 16 miles out of Denton. Denton is growing that way, which which stimulates more housing developments, so we have a rapidly growing school district.

"Right now," he said, "the high school is a large 2A high school but soon to be in 3A." The rapid growth is both a challenge and opportunity for Davis. "Old Krum residents," he said, "are having to make adjustments because they're not used to this many people. They're expanding: buildings, students, teachers. ... Next year will be the first year of football for the district, starting with the seventh and eighth grades."

They've already built a football stadium and a new gym. Krum, by the way, is part of what had been a unique district composed of mostly basketball-playing schools.

Davis leaves a school system that has faced enrollment issues, but "I think we (Alpine) have finally have seen the bottom of our student decline," he said. "I really anticipate some growth. Which is really contrary to what the [U.S. Census] says, but the Census projections that are out there do not take into consideration" the buildup of Homeland Security numbers in the Big Bend.

In fact, Davis already sees significant signs of growth. "One of the indicators of growth [is] in the lower age levels," he said, "and when you look at our kindergarten clssses, we've had three straight years of increasing numbers.

"I think that's going to continue," he added. "We're not even close to finishing our build up in Homeland Security. Plus, for instance, most of the Border Patrol agents are young, many not even married. But that will change and eventually they will have kids in the school district, they'll be buying homes here."

Davis and his wife, Susan, moved to Alpine in January 2003. They came from Meadow, a small community southwest of Lubbock, where he was superintendent.

Davis did not follow a typical career path.

"I was in the industrial construction business for 20 years," he said. "In fact, I built the [border] surveillance systems throughout this area. In fact, the only ones I didn't build were the ones in Deming, N.M., and Yuma, Ariz.

"I worked around here a lot," he added, "For instance, I put the roof on the McDonald's here in town ... put all the steel in the math building at Sul Ross."

Davis is also the son of a man in the construction business, so he wound up moving around a bit as a kid. "I went to elementary, junior and early high school in Van Horn."

However, Davis says he wasn't necessarily following in his dad's footsteps when he entered the construction business.

"We got married in 1971 but in 1972 they [military] were about to draft me," he said. "I was ready to go, even went through the physical and everything, but then the [Vietnam] war started to fizzle out and they didn't need me. So I went into construction."

For several years, he worked mostly in oilfield construction, "but then the '86 bust hit," he said, "so I had to do other stuff. traveling a lot ... started building the surveillance systems."

But all that travel meant he missed his family. "There had to be something better than being away from my family all the time," he said.

The solution: He went to Sul Ross in 1990, receiving his degree in industrial technology in 1992.

In 1993, "I finished my last surveillance system in [Los Angeles] in mid-August, then went to work for Midland Greenwood school system and taught industrial tech.

"Two years later, I took an assistant middle principal's job in Brownfield," he said. "[Brownfield] recruited me. I was working on my master's at Sul Ross and the superintendent came to Sul Ross looking for candidates. My name was mentioned."

In 2003, when he and his wife started talking to AISD, Davis said, "I looked at it and saw the financial issues. But it was a place we liked the area (Susan grew up in Sanderson, he grew up in Van Horn). I thought we could fix a lot of the things that were wrong.

"With a lot of support from the school board," he said, "we fixed a lot of those things."

Among the supportive things the school board did, Davis emphasizes, was hiring Darrell Dodds as the district's chief financial officer.

"They hired him just ahead of me," Davis said. "He was a quick study on school finance. He had been a banker. I worked a lot with him at first but it wasn't long before he started correcting me."

The teaming of Davis and Dodds has been extraordinarily productive, for "Darrell is one of those easygoing guys and I'm a little more tight, so we complement each other. Between us and a supportive board, we were able to make the changes we needed to make."

The first thing Davis had to face was the district's poor financial shape.

"When I got here, we had almost a million dollars deficit," he said.

Maybe more importantly, "we also had a low-performing middle school," he said. "We had failed a compliance visit by the state, failing 24 of the 26 indicators." That compliance visit occurred before Davis arrived.

When you fail a compliance visit, he said, you have to show the state that you have a corrective action plan. "For some reason, the district had chosen not to do a corrective action plan. We were told we'd be receiving a review committee to see what we were going to do."

The review committee came to Alpine intending to spend three days. "Within three hours, they left," Davis said. "We were prepared. Everything they asked, we had an answer for."

Davis leaves an extraordinary legacy that will allow his successor to build an even better school district.

"I believe the school is financially sound," he said, "actually more than sound. I think academically we've made great gains.

"It's been a bit of a roller coaster, but it wouldn't surprise me if we're a recognized district this year. ... Our buildings are in as good a shape as they've been in many years. All three campuses have cafeterias on them. When we got here, they didn't have a cafeteria at the high school. Transportation is probably the best that this school has ever seen; we have the best equipment on the roads that we've had."

Davis is proud of his time in Alpine, but he's gracious about the team that has attacked Alpine's challenges.

"It wasn't just me, it was a team effort," he said. "I had a great school board to work with; they gave me the rope and didn't keep me harnessed up, they didn't have special agendas, they wanted to do what was right for the kids and community."

With the superintendent and the president of the school board (Ray Hendryx) leaving in the same year, Davis is conscious that the sense of stability will be shaken a bit.

"But I'm old enough to not be naïve," he said, "and I know there are people out there that are just as good or better, and Alpine will find them.

"They are not a fighting board, they are a team," Davis said. "Our team of eight (the board and the superintendent) all want to do what's best for the students."

School board President Ray Hendryx speaks most eloquently for those who have appreciated what Davis has done for AISD:

"Alpine ISD was in a real financial pickle when he came in here. His predecessor, Jim Marshall, had come down with terminal throat cancer. We were between business managers. And we were also looking for an auditor who would give us the straight scoop.

"The Good Lord looked out for us, as we got an excellent superintendent, an excellent business manager and an excellent auditor. As a result, the district's financial situation made a 180 [degree turn].

"Mike has been aggressively addressing facilities needs, too, including overhauling our cyber communications infrastructure on all campuses, major renovation work at the high school including a new classroom addition, a new cafeteria, and a new roof on the high school building.

"We also replaced the roof and HVAC at the elementary school, as well as the lighting system. We built a new kitchen at the elementary school cafeteria. We made some major improvements at Buck Stadium. We're getting ready to replace the roof and HVAC at the administration building. All of this is possible because of Mike's outstanding management of district resources.

"We didn't have to borrow one red cent. Mike was very instrumental in getting the state comptroller to back off on its ridiculous property valuation study several years ago.

"We're fighting that battle again right now, and I sure hope we can reach an agreement before Mike leaves.

"Simply put, this district is losing an outstanding administrator. He'll be hard to replace.

"While we hate to see him go, we're happy that he and Susan will be able to be closer to their family."

Davis said the next big challenge for the new superintendent will involve facilities.

"We just recently completed a facility study and it has become very clear that our high school and our elementary school are not adequately designed for our students. At one time we didn't have computers in the classroom, we didn't have special ed, we didn't have gifted and talented programs. ... Our classrooms are not built for the demands made by these new - and necessary - programs."

Davis sees a time when the district can consolidate all three schools into the same area (retaining separate campuses).

"We've got the property to put the facilities (north of the present middle school). ... Now it's a matter of building the type of school buildings that will be conducive to learning, more than simply adequate."

The new superintendent's other large challenge will be recruitment and retention of highly qualified and fully certified teachers. "But that's going to be a challenge for every district in the state," Davis said. [Texas schools at this time] simply we can't afford to compete with industry."

As an example, he said, "I can start a teacher at $30,000 a year; the Border Patrol starts new agents at $35,000. And then, within three years, Border Patrol agents can be making up to $75,000. The best I can do is $32,000 or so after three years."

Davis is the quintessential advocate for public schools: "So go our public schools, so goes our nation, If we lose our public schools, our nation will go broke. It's imperative that we ante.

"I don't have any answers," he said, "but the nation must have a healthy, vibrant public school system."

School Supt. Davis leaving for Krum

mikeperry@alpineavalanche.com