Man Behind The Curtain
Filed Under Country Curtain | Posted on December 14, 2008
He’s the guy who decides whether it’s too snowy or foggy for Fort Wayne students to go to school.
He’s ultimately the one who makes sure all 20,000 meals that Fort Wayne Community Schools prepares each day are served. The buck stops with him when it comes to school security and technology.
The departments Doug Coutts oversees are the nuts and bolts of the district. When things are running smoothly, the job of the chief operations officer for Fort Wayne Community Schools gets little attention.
When things don’t run smoothly, Coutts can be a lightning rod for complaints.
“No parent ever storms in (the administration building) complaining that their kid’s history teacher didn’t get to the Restoration period of American history by the end of the first semester. That just doesn’t happen,” Coutts said. “Food services and transportation, those can be volatile. So it’s tough.”
After 40 years in education, Coutts, 62, jokes that he’ll get it right in about five or six years. But he won’t get the chance to prove it.
Friday was Coutts’ last day on the job. He’s now retired. It only took him two attempts to get that right.
Coutts tried to retire in 2002 just before Wendy Robinson, then the chief academic officer, was named FWCS superintendent. Robinson asked Coutts whether he would stay on so she wouldn’t have to worry about finding and training a replacement as she was learning the ropes of her new position.
“It was just a very selfish, comforting thing for me to rely on somebody with Doug’s expertise and knowledge about the district,” Robinson said.
Tags: administration building, american history, chief academic officer, chief operations officer, food services, fort wayne community schools, history teacher, learning the ropes, lightning rod, man behind the curtain, new position, nuts and bolts, restoration period, right coutts, school security, six years, storms, superintendent, wayne students, wendy robinsonRelated posts
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