THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 13, 1996 TAG: 9607130170
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Profile
SOURCE: BY ALETA PAYNE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 158 lines
Robert F. Hagans learned his most valuable life lessons from his mother, a woman dedicated to teaching other people's children as well.
When Hagans, as a 5-year-old, couldn't quite sweep the walk to her satisfaction, she took the broom to show him how.
``The moral of that lesson was if you're going to do something, do it right,'' he recalls.
When he wanted to quit his newspaper route after just a year, she wouldn't let him drop that responsibility. He ended up keeping it for another three.
``She said, `I'm going to show you how not to be a quitter,' '' Hagans said.
The lessons Hazel Hagans taught her oldest son should help him as he tackles his newest challenge, one more intensely demanding than sweeping sidewalks or delivering newspapers. As the recently elected chairman of the Virginia Beach School Board, he will lead a largely novice group as they continue rebuilding a division that has weathered more than a year of crises and change.
That process advanced Friday, as board members were scheduled to begin a three-day retreat aimed at getting to know each other and looking to the school division's future.
Hagans emerged as a compromise candidate for the chairmanship after the board split 5-5 in a closed session over two other members pursuing the post. Hagans' unanimous selection typifies the sort of consensus-building and mediation that the attorney and father of three said he hopes to bring to the chairman's role.
``I deal in problem resolution every day,'' Hagans said during a recent interview in his Norfolk office in the Crestar Bank building, the tall windows of his work space overlooking Scope and the city's downtown. ``The division has problems. All the problems cannot be quickly mended, but at least we can analyze and come up with solutions. That's what I hope we will do this weekend.''
He described his board colleagues as intelligent and independent.
``But that doesn't mean they should be going 11 different ways. I see my responsibility as building consensus,'' he said. ``I think with a little experience, we're going to have an excellent board.''
Hagans, 43, was born into a family of educators, including a great-great-grandmother who started a school in Crewe, a great-grandfather who was a school principal, and a grandfather who was a math teacher, a principal and a farmer in Lunenburg County. ``They say he could add long rows of figures in his head,'' Hagans said.
But his mother, who taught special education in Norfolk for 20 years, clearly left the strongest impression. ``My mother would get up at 4 o'clock in the morning to read. She was a good role model,'' Hagans said. ``She'd try to teach me things. I'd pretend I wasn't listening, but I'd absorb.''
Clearly. His mother, who died in 1973, would be proud to know that he is now reading three books simultaneously - autobiographies of Thomas Jefferson and Henry Ford, and ``The Souls of Black Folk'' by W.E.B. Du Bois; he is also planning to return to a volume he studied in college to brush up on his educational philosophy.
Although neither he nor either of his two siblings went into teaching, he recalls beloved subjects and teachers from his time in Virginia Beach's schools. A resident of the Bayside community for most of his life, Hagans began as a student when the division's schools were still segregated. He graduated from Bayside High School. His father, a postal clerk, presided over the PTAs at two of the schools the Hagans children attended.
The new board chairman's oldest daughter will attend Bayside Sixth Grade Campus in the fall, and his son is not yet school age. His youngest daughter recently completed private kindergarten, and Hagans said he and his wife may opt for her to attend first grade there as well, although she will definitely begin public school no later than the second grade.
His confidence in the quality of the city's schools is high, Hagans said.
``At the time I graduated, no one could tell me I didn't have a superior education,'' he said. ``I think the school system has done quite well'' in the students it produces.
All of this was not enough to sweep him unhesitatingly onto the School Board when he was approached by the city's Circuit Court judges this spring. The board was undergoing upheaval, with most of its members resigning in the wake of a scathing grand jury report. It fell to the judges to choose some of the replacements; Hagans emerged as a possibility in Bayside.
Judge Jerome B. Friedman said he and his colleagues knew of Hagans' ties to the Bayside community, his family's history of involvement in education and his work on the city's Community Services Board, which he had chaired.
``Those things kind of set him apart,'' said Friedman. ``Those are nice qualities to have.''
But Hagans, aware of the district's turmoil, asked for time to think about the offer and to discuss it with his wife, Peggy. He also spoke to former School Board Chairman Gregory N. Stillman, who had served before Hagans on the Community Services Board.
Convinced that he could contribute, Hagans agreed to the two-year School Board appointment. He resigned from the Community Services Board. He said he is convinced he can balance the time commitment of his new role as School Board leader with the demands of his single-attorney law practice, his family and his other responsibilities, including serving as a divorce commissioner and president of a local ski club.
``I'm doing it because it's one of the few things in life truly worth doing,'' Hagans said. ``It's a chance to make a difference.''
He hopes to shorten board meetings, which increasingly have grown into marathon sessions under previous boards. He would like to strip away some of the politics that have become intertwined in the board's business.
He realizes that staff morale has taken a beating, with some central office staff and principals particularly upset about Superintendent Timothy R. Jenney's recent reorganization. But, Hagans said, the superintendent must have the opportunity to decide whom he will work with and to choose people who are loyal to him. Hagans said he believes the superintendent has the best interest of the division at heart.
``The new people coming in, he's accountable for their performance. I think he knows that.''
And Hagans realizes that he and the board have many constituents, both internally and externally, to satisfy.
``There are a lot of people in the school system to be kept happy. What we're really doing is a balancing act.''
Some of the people he has come into contact with said Hagans is an excellent choice to help the division strike that balance.
``It was a pleasure working with him because of the professional way he conducts himself. We found him to be extremely fair in the manner he dealt with folks,'' said Dennis I. Wool, executive director of the Community Services Board. ``He's a good listener. And I would say his legal background lets him do a good job of analysis on policy issues.''
Stillman, during his own days on the School Board, would sometimes run into Hagans in the Norfolk building where both have offices. Hagans often had questions about what was happening in the division.
``I suppose more than anything I was always impressed by his natural interest in public education,'' Stillman said. ``My impression was he's someone who really wants to make a difference in public education.''
Board member H.L. ``Les'' Powell Jr. has known the new chairman since Hagans worked in the commonwealth's attorney's office in Norfolk.
``He's a hard worker,'' Powell said. ``He's fair. You know where he stands. He's just a good person.''
Hagans knows that the praise of others and past successes will not be enough in a job that is only as strong as the person who holds it and the people who sit on either side of him each Tuesday.
He hopes this group can come together, move beyond the emotionally draining issues of the last year and refocus the city on its children.
``I don't think there's a family in Virginia Beach that doesn't want their child to have the best teacher possible,'' he said. ``We have to enhance the character and intellect of the students. Teach them decency and integrity. All of that makes a good school system.'' ILLUSTRATION: BETH BERGMAN
The Virginian-Pilot
Robert F. Hagans, 43, describes his new board colleagues as
intelligent and independent.
ROBERT F. HAGANS
Born in Norfolk; resident of Bayside Borough of Virginia Beach
for 39 years
Graduate of Bayside High School; Howard University - B.A.,
political science, with a minor in philosophy; College of William
and Mary School of Law - J.D.
Attorney in private practice; formerly a staff attorney in the
Norfolk commonwealth's attorney's office
Divorce commissioner, city of Norfolk; board of trustees, Norfolk
Marine Institute; chairman, city of Norfolk Employee Grievance Panel
Former chair of the Virginia Beach Community Services Board; past
president of the South Hampton Roads Bar Association
Married with three children
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH SCHOOL BOARD by CNB