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Doctors Charter School Chief Quits

Posted on: Monday, 27 February 2006, 12:00 CST

By Dan Roblee, The Miami Herald

Feb. 26--With the resignation of executive director Maggie Manrara, the board of first-year Doctors Charter School in Miami Shores now turns its focus to picking a new leader and trying to staunch the wounds left by a divisive school year.

Manrara's resignation nearly two weeks ago was prompted by strong and vocal opposition from a sizable contingent of parents that began at the start of the school year. Bill Heffernan, chairman of the school's board of directors, said the board would now likely redirect money from classroom expenditures to hiring a lawyer to help the mostly inexperienced board function more effectively in the face of likely continued discontent.

"We have parents that want to run the school, instead of the board running the school, and that's not the way it's going to happen," he said. "I have no problem with parental input on the board. I just don't like it when they try to take over by intimidation. The parents running the school is like the patients running the asylum."

Diane Ramirez, one of the dissatisfied parents, said she was happy that Manrara would be moving on, and expressed confidence the school's divided community would be able to heal and work together in the future.

"I think the school can get onto the right track," she said. "I think we all have to pull together. She wasn't the only problem, but she was the main problem."

Ramirez said she felt the unhappy parents were willing to move beyond their generally oppositional relationship to the board of directors, but that Heffernan would also need to make an effort.

"He either needs to get over himself and work with us, or he needs to go, too," she said.

In her letter of resignation, given to the school's board of directors at its Feb. 16 meeting, Manrara said she felt she was being "forced to focus on issues that have little to do with the education of the students."

She will leave her post March 17, more than two months before the end of the school's first year of operation.

She had little to add in an interview Monday with The Miami Herald, but did say that she would be willing to assist her potential replacement with learning the job even after her resignation date.

The school got off to a chaotic start in its first year of operation after replacing the Miami Shores Barry University charter middle school, expanding the charter to include a high school and a new facility.

This year, grades 9 and 10 were added, and additional grades will be added in the next two years.

Construction on the school building was completed just days prior to the start of school in August. Once it opened, hundreds of textbooks took weeks to arrive, and scheduling difficulties contributed to a rocky beginning.

Ever since, the unhappy parents questioned Manrara's qualifications, performance and attitude, and alleged a conflict of interest in her hiring due to Heffernan's overseeing Manrara's husband, Alberto, at Total Bank.

Heffernan said he'd spoken with Manrara about her resignation prior to the Feb. 16 meeting, and tried to talk her out of her decision. "I think she did a hell of a job," he said, adding that the rest of the board was surprised and upset with the news.

He said he felt it was a "tiny minority" of parents that opposed Manrara's leadership, but that their criticism was so fierce that he didn't "think any executive director could have stood up to it."

Heffernan saw a silver lining in the timing of Manrara's resignation, saying it would give the board time to find a new administrator before candidates and board members went on summer vacations.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Miami Herald

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Source: The Miami Herald

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