Meet Dr. Dunlap

In the wake of Dr. Taschner’s departure last month, there has been speculation, accusation and most importantly, concerns over transparency related to the interim superintendent search.  However, despite concern about rushing to approve Dr. Dunlap, we believe that the board made the right decision.  Interim superintendents serve a critical role in school leadership and having Dr. Dunlap in place has already proved helpful to the opening of the school year. 

Coatesville has employed many interim superintendents over the years.  We have witnessed the impact leadership has had on our district.   Bringing in a good interim superintendent cannot only help stabilize our fractured district but could also help unify it.  What our district needs right now is an interim who can provide expertise for crucial decisions, help resuscitate our community's confidence, and restore sound business practices.  With that being said, CCAP understands the concerns.  So on Dr.Dunlap’s very first day on the job, we emailed him to see if he would be open to having an interview; we were excited to properly introduce him to our Coatesville community.  Not only did he quickly respond to the email, but he also called us back in less than 24 hours to set up that appointment.   

Last Tuesday, Dr. Dunlap sat down with Lyryn Yacoe and Katie Hadzor. He gratuitously spent over two hours answered a series of questions and conversing about the District.

Tell us about your background, how you heard about the opportunity in CASD, and why you were interested in coming to Coatesville as interim Superintendent.

Dr. Dunlap works for CRESS, an Act 51 provider that supports districts by providing administrative short term personnel when a district is in need.  The CASD School Board reached out to CRESS and informed them that we had a need for an interim superintendent. After CRESS secured Dr. Dunlap for the position, he met with board leadership thru CRESS.  According to Dr. Dunlap, he approximated that he was only informed of this job two Fridays before beginning as superintendent. 

Describe your leadership style

Dr. Dunlap described his style as collaborative with making decisions around consensus. He recognizes that not all will agree.  However, he sees his role in the process is to listen to different points of view to make the best decision for the children of the district. He shared that he needs to provide the board with all information who ultimately need to make decisions. 

What is a career-related achievement of which you are most proud?

Dr. Dunlap is most proud of the strong, positive and professional relationships he’s made over the years with students, parents, board members and employees who have profoundly impacted him over the years.  He shared examples of how he has learned from various relationships and still values that all parties can still learn from one another.

What major challenges have you faced in prior positions?

Like many superintendents, student achievement across the board has been a challenge. He has been in districts including all ranges of academic achievement. He also acknowledged that managing finances responsibly in order to provide appropriate supports for students while not adversely affecting programs is always a concern.

As a leader, how do you balance the need for honesty and transparency with efficient operations and preserving confidentiality?

Dr. Dunlap was very clear that confidentiality is not a line anyone can cross.  However, information can be presented without breaking confidentiality. Transparency comes with saying “Here’s what I know; here’s the information.”   He recognizes the importance of having all of the data and the facts: “I don’t think you have to rush things.  I need to weigh things out before being able to make a decision.”

For Dr. Dunlap, it is important to make sure parents, staff, and community members are informed and understand the process.  Informing of the process along with promoting public input will help making sure there is transparency.  He believes if a committee is going to meet to work through something, and the end result is to present it to the board, then that needs to be made clear. Also, he wants to ensure that an agenda is provided and followed to make sure discussions are productive.

What part of being a superintendent is most challenging for you and how do you set yourself up for success with that in mind?

On the first week back, Dr. Dunlap shared with the administration what his expectations are of them. In return, the very next day, he put them in groups and asked them what their expectations of him were. He values communication. Those conversations between Dr. Dunlap and administrators included similar dialogue and terminology. 

He stressed that it was difficult to be so knowledgeable on everything, which makes it so important to rely on folks with that expertise. He wants to be on top of everything and he personally works hard to ensure that he can.

Is your focus as an interim to maintain the status quo or to make changes for improvement?

The job of the interim is to set up a transition plan.  For Dr. Dunlap, he is learning on the run because he’s sitting in the chair at the same time that he is collecting information (data, numbers, etc.) He values the importance of collecting information in order to present it to the next superintendent. He wants to be able to provide it, so his predecessor has the information available and hit the ground running.

What is your experience with community engagement and how would you leverage key community stakeholders to improve student learning?

Much to our relief and excitement, Dr. Dunlap expressed how important he finds listening to community groups and including them in being actively engaged in our school district. Dr. Dunlap believes that there should be regular communication: “I would rather have a conversation with folks because then if they understand a tough situation they would be working toward the same thing and aren’t hit blind.” He wants to have a dialogue with all stakeholders.

Given the district’s financial challenges, how are you planning to ensure decisions are made in a fiscally responsible way?

Dr. Dunlap is currently working with Rich Fazio and Charles Linderman, business managers, to get a good grasp on what our finances look like. He wants to look at the return on investment to see what we are spending our budget on.

Do you have any initial impressions of the way the district’s special education program is implementing its inclusion model, especially in light of classrooms with 60% or more of students having IEPs? What would you change?

Dr. Dunlap, true to the rest of his responses, is in information-seeking mode. He has asked each director and each building principal to tell a little about their department, school, personnel, goals, concerns and to provide him the numbers. He is looking at how those goals are in line with the comprehensive plan, how the district administration is supporting the building goals, and how buildings are supporting district goals.

What are your thoughts on restoring the alternative education program CASD used to have?

He shared when you send students out you are paying to have them educated – so are there programs we can bring back to support them? If it’s a program we can support as a district, it is important to take a look at that.

How will you ensure an environment where employees work without fear and can share ideas or try new tactics to improve student learning?

Dr. Dunlap emphasizes that schools should be able to rely on the expertise from within an organization. It's not always needed to seek to hire an outside group. By having employees share their expertise, it also empowers individuals. He asserts that really good things that can be done with the staff in-house and he has to be able to give them the opportunity to do that.

How will you entice students back to CASD from charter schools, and how does enrollment look for the school year compared to prior years?

Dr. Dunlap contends that we need to look at what we are currently doing so we can build confidence in folks to stay – and then look at what we can  celebrate to brings folks back. He elaborates that when students return from other schools that they are our kids and we need to meet them where they are and incorporate them back into the system. 

We concurred that we find students tend to return in middle and high school since more opportunities are available to them at that time. He is researching and preparing numbers to share our current enrollment in comparison to previous enrollment.

How would you like to communicate with and hear from parents, students, and community members with ideas or feedback about the district?

Dr. Dunlap welcomes communication in a variety of ways: he maintains that communication can be formal like board meetings, but also informal. We discussed the format of the committee meetings and how in other districts and in the past in our district they were more of "work sessions." Board Policy dictates how these are run and would need to be reviewed. It is a possibility that we can return to an environment of collaboration.

We also discussed with Dr. Dunlap a tentative plan for CCAP leaders to meet and discuss with him community concerns. We are exploring the best structure to have a dialogue before a committee meeting to ask questions, share concerns, etc.

Lyryn and Katie had many more questions but thought it would be wise to wait until a later date to continue the conversation.  They very much enjoyed their time with Dr. Dunlap and are extremely appreciative that he took the time out to speak with CCAP. 

CCAP would like to extend a warm, appreciative welcome to Dr. Dunlap. His style, openness, and willingness to communicate gives us much hope for restoring the community's faith in the district, and assisting us in bringing back the many students and teachers we have lost. We are excited to work with him - we know this will be a process- but with the amazing Coatesville Community, we know it's one that we will do with PRIDE!