Roger Pfeuffer began his career in education as a fourth-grade teacher in the Tucson Unified School District 34 years ago. He has grown up with the district, he said, and has a vested interest in its future - especially now, when TUSD is "at a very important tipping point for our future" and he is finally at the helm.
Becoming superintendent, even interim superintendent, wasn't something Pfeuffer expected as he climbed the ladder from teacher to ombudsman to elementary and then junior high principal and finally area and assistant superintendent. When he retired in 2002, he was certain he would not have that opportunity.
Pfeuffer, 62, said he thought about throwing his hat into the ring when Superintendent George Garcia left the 61,000-student district four years ago, but decided against it when Stan Paz became a candidate.
In April, on four days' notice, Pfeuffer agreed to replace the ousted Paz as interim superintendent, but said he expected, and wanted, to be relieved within a year.
Now, as he has become enmeshed in some of the major issues facing Arizona's second-largest district, which includes most of central Tucson, Pfeuffer said he feels bound to follow through and provide steady leadership at least through the 2005-06 school year, if that's what the school board wants.
Indeed, there are huge issues facing TUSD: the possible end of the federal desegregation order, or unification, for TUSD; bond and override elections; at least one new face on the school board; and the nagging question of how to prepare all the members of the Class of 2006 to pass AIMS (Arizona's Instrument to Measure Standards) and get diplomas.
"The big word is 'change,' " said Pfeuffer, who, because he has spent most of his career in TUSD, said he knows its strengths and weaknesses. And he feels connected enough to say "we" when he refers to the district.
"We were a leader in desegregation, a leader in bilingual education, a leader in school counseling and putting librarians in more schools. We were a leader when we put in full-day kindergarten years ago," he said. "We are a leader in diversity. We are a laboratory of what other school districts are going to look like, urban and suburban, especially with the growth of Latino and immigration populations."
He said the district has become a majority/minority school: "It went from 28 percent minority in 1978 to about 64 percent this year."
The interim superintendent said TUSD actually has reduced class size over the more than 30 years he has been a part of it.
Salaries are more competitive as well, he said. The starting salary is $30,500 and the average is in the low $40,000 range, putting TUSD on a level playing field when vying for the best teachers.
Educating our kids across the board, across all economic, racial and ethnic lines, is absolutely crucial, he said.
School districts "must produce not only people able to make choices with their lives after high school about college or joining the work force, but in the words of Horace Mann, must produce an educated electorate, because that is the basis of our democracy."
Pfeuffer said the one thing he would like to change about TUSD is the notion that "big is bad and the idea that because we are large we somehow can't act as if we are small. That's the key," he said. "To improve people's perceptions of our schools, we need to personalize things. There is no reason people coming into one of our schools should feel like they are in a bureaucracy. They are in a school."
He also would like to help people "have faith in the district so they know that we are using taxpayers' resources wisely and effectively and that we are a welcoming community that serves an important purpose in the lives of students."
"Throughout the years, I've had broad-based experiences and grown with all of them," he said. "That's why I'm feeling the excitement and energy I have now, because I want to put all those experiences together into a comprehensive plan for this district."
