A Tough Talker Who Demands Action.

That hurricane-like force that blew in on the schools of Broward County, Fla., last winter had some veteran educators quivering at their desks. Tough-talking, tough-acting Frank Petruzielo was coming to town as the new superintendent.

A go-getter with a forceful, at-times bombastic, manner, Petruzielo wasted little time justifying his reputation for tackling difficult issues. On day one, Feb. 1, 1994, he quelled two running controversies--scuttling a contentious year-round schooling proposal for the entire county and offering a new set of contract terms to the teachers' union (whose prolonged negotiations ended in a settlement one week later).

It was an auspicious beginning for the beefy, 50-year-old Petruzielo, and the momentum hasn't stopped. "Since he's come on board, there's been an energy level we've never seen before in this county," says Greg Clark, principal of Bair Middle School and a Broward educator for 27 years.

Petruzielo came to Broward as a well-known quantity. He spent 25 years working next door in Dade County, the last few years in a high-profile position overseeing the district's ground-breaking shared decision-making approach, the startup of worksite schools, and other innovations that attracted nationwide attention. Between Dade and Broward, he served for 2 1/2 years as superintendent in Houston, where in his last year he replaced the entire staff of a perennially failing elementary school.

His return to south Florida was largely for personal reasons. Petruzielo's 85-year-old dad and his mother-in-law live in the area, and his own family resided in the county during his lengthy term in Dade. He is quick to note that a search firm contacted him about the position.

One of his early feats in Broward was getting consensus among the seven-member school board for a series of seven systemwide priorities. (Individual board members previously had submitted their own pet peeves for district attention.) The top priority calls for improving student achievement and school effectiveness.

In February, the board adopted an accountability policy that attaches consequences to the responsibility of site administrators and teachers to ensure academic achievement. Beginning next year, every school will be rated annually and publicly on an ambitious list of research-based criteria to be completed later this spring. The policy evolved from a process that had Petruzielo and his staff running nearly 40 focus groups of various stakeholders.

"Few large districts could pull this off without a heckuva lot of kicking and screaming," says Petruzielo. "And it's not a milquetoast policy. ... It draws a line in the sand and says, 'You're not allowed to have kids not perform forever.'"

He suggests that a repeat of his dramatic school takeover in Houston is a possibility in Broward, but only upon evidence of continuing failure in spite of central-office counsel and help. "If you don't have the right chemistry to get the kids what they need, let's change the chemistry," he says.

Petruzielo's aggressive style notwithstanding, Broward's building principals discovered the superintendent had an open mind. "He has his own idea where he wants this county to go, but he's willing to try if you have a better idea," says Clark, who appreciates the fact all seven board members and the superintendent now will use the same guideposts to measure performance.

Through such accommodations, "people who once were afraid of his reputation now ... are all on the same page with him," says Bob Parks, a school board member.

Petruzielo says he matured "personally and professionally" from his experiences working under former Dade Superintendent Joseph Fernandez at the fore of that co county's shared decision-making approach. "While site-based management and shared decision-making were almost totally new as practiced in Dade, they allowed too much focus on process and not enough on outcomes. ... One thing I brought with me here is a better perspective."

Yet from his 10 years of working in labor relations in Dade, Petruzielo does not mind perpetuating the image of tough guy.

On his first-year anniversary in Broward, a local newspaper dubbed him "rebel with a cause" and described his weekend penchant for riding his red Harley wearing dark shades, Wranglers, and a sweatshirt that proclaims, "If you have to ask why, you wouldn't understand."

Asked how he viewed this public portrayal, Petruzielo acknowledged, "Pretty clever."