Bill Cala is in only his third month as Rochester's interim school superintendent. But even though his time with the district may be brief - School Board members say they hope to have a new superintendent on board by the end of August - he's about to shake things up.

Before the end of the month, he says, he will present the first phase of a major reorganization directed at the district's upper management. Although he wouldn't get into specifics in a recent interview, he says there will be demotions, and some jobs will be eliminated.

"This district isn't organized like any I have ever seen," says Cala. "My biggest concern, the reason this is necessary, is we are not focused on kids. And that's the only reason we're here. There's no other reason to come through those front doors."

Cala is not new to school-district management. He was superintendent of the Fairport district for nine years. But minutes into a conversation with Cala, it's clear he is not fond of school-district bureaucracy. He almost spits when he refers to some jobs as "paper pushing." Not only does he think the Rochester district has too many administrators, but he also says the district's departments are organized in ways that distance the administration from students.

"We have a lot of people who are working on bits and pieces of certain functions," he says. "They sometimes work in different and unrelated departments. But what is most problematic is seeing how there can be two separate lines of communication about kids, with information that isn't shared. People are working in their own separate silos, and that's got to change."

With more than 3,500 professionals and 2,100 people in supportive roles, the City School District is one of the city's major employers. But Cala says it is the Superintendent's Employee Group - about 50 people; senior administrators and their support staff - that concerns him.

Too many people report directly to the superintendent, Cala says, and the district's organizational chart places too much emphasis on administration and not enough on academics. The chart, which is available online through the district's website (rcsdk12), shows 12 people reporting directly to the superintendent, with titles such as "chief of staff," "chief of surround care and community partnerships," "chief of communications," and "chief of planning." That reflects, from the top down, a culture that puts more emphasis on procedure and paperwork than on what happens in the classroom, says Cala.

"I can tell you that I'm looking at a leaner organization," Cala says. "Right now, there is no one in charge of curriculum and instruction, which is astonishing to me. It is divided up among many people. And that's a problem, because you can't get common practices down to the classroom. I am looking at one person who will be in charge of early childhood, elementary, and secondary education."

Cala has already developed a strong following. Some supporters, including some School Board members, practically swoon when they talk about him.

In part, that may be because the board asked him to conduct the shake-up he is preparing. But support for that change implies direct criticism of Cala's popular predecessor, Manny Rivera, who was named national Superintendent of the Year in 2006 - and who received a raise and a contract extension from the School Board in 2005.

It's not unusual for new superintendents to make organizational changes, however (though it may be less common with interim superintendents).

"Many times you will see them make a set of changes based on their own needs at that time," says Jody Siegle, executive director of the Monroe County School Board Association. "The district is growing, for example, and there needs to be more emphasis at the elementary level."

And some superintendents are more administration oriented, while others are more academics oriented, Siegle says. But most districts in the state are organized with few people reporting directly to the superintendent, she says.

"Usually, the superintendent will have two primary reports," says Siegle. "Most districts are set up so that one person will report to the superintendent about academics - everything that happens with respect to instruction at the classroom level. The other person would be responsible for business and finance."

Cala, of course, is used to running a district considerably smaller than Rochester's. Urban school districts, by their sheer size, have greater administrative needs than rural and suburban districts. Cala may not have an appreciation for the amount of administrative work required of the City School District, says Siegle.

"That's not a criticism of Dr. Cala," she says, "but administration for the Big Five school districts is much different than it is in the smaller school districts. The financials for urban school districts have become incredibly complex. The legal and regulatory requirements are mountainous, and somebody has to do that work."

Much of the criticism directed at school-district administrators misses the point, says local attorney and former School Board member Rob Brown.

"There are certain functions required in any organization that are administrative," he says. "It has nothing to do with how many people there are doing that work. The question is has anyone looked at the positions that are needed, and are highly qualified people devoted to children matched up with those positions. I found that people who say that the district's Central Office is bloated are usually bitter because somehow it hasn't served their personal needs."

To target administration is an oversimplification, says School Board member Willa Powell. Sometimes it takes an outsider to help correct what is an organizational problem, she says.

"I don't want to gang up on former Superintendent Rivera now that he's not here," says Powell. "And I don't want to paint a halo around Dr. Cala, either. But he could see that some of the administrative problems we have are self-inflicted wounds. You don't always see that when you are an insider. But somebody coming from the outside can help you get to the root cause of the problem instead of compounding one administrative problem with another. And he is approaching this from an extraordinarily child-friendly view - not from the point of view of the people currently holding those jobs."

Cala says he put every decision about the reorganization through a simple screening process: "How does this help these kids? If I do this, does it help them? Is it neutral? Or does it hinder them? That's all that really matters, and I want everyone here to use the same set of guidelines. What am I doing? What am I spending my time on that helps kids?"

Central-office administrators have been a target for critics for years. "All too often, the decision makers in central office are disconnected from what really matters in schools," says one of those critics, Rochester Teachers Association President Adam Urbanski. "They often rely on second-hand information. It's like they do the cooking, but not the eating. It might be interesting to require all administrators to have some regular interaction with at least one school so they can see how the decisions they make either work or don't work in the real world. By that, I mean the classroom."

If critics like Urbanski are right, Cala may be in the perfect position to make some of the changes that have been talked about by previous superintendents.

"I have already seen the enormous politics that go on in the back rooms of this building," Cala says. "A new superintendent that steps into this who has to worry about their lifelong career decisions may put the hard choices on hold. I don't. I am free to do whatever I think needs to be done for these kids. And I am moving forward."

That attitude pleases Vicki Gouveia, who is principal of School 45 and is the president of the Association of Supervisors and Administrators of Rochester, which represents the district's principals and other unionized administrators.

"We're very pleased with what we see Dr. Cala doing," she says. "He understands that Central Office is there to support the schools, because that's where the work is being done. It's not the other way around. He is very child-focused. Whether it is curriculum or transportation, every decision that's made, he understands the question is: ‘What's best for the children?' In a large organization like this one, priorities can get confused."

As an example, Gouveia tells about a scheduling conflict with school buses. Cala received a call from a man who lives near one of the schools, asking why students were arriving early for school every day but were then sitting on the bus for 30 minutes. When Cala made some calls, he learned that it was happening in more than a dozen schools. No arrangements for supervision of the children had been made, so the bus drivers weren't releasing them.

"It sounds like a simple, almost silly thing," says Gouveia. "But the system was working to favor the needs of adults, not children."

Talk of a reorganization has made some School Board members nervous, however. Tom Brennan, for example, says Cala shouldn't be making "structural changes."

"For one thing, he is the interim superintendent," says Brennan. "Dr. Cala has the authority to dismiss Superintendent Employee Group members who are problematic. He has yet to do so, and should. But the long-term superintendent we will soon select should conduct any reorganization in consultation with the board."

According to state law, Cala can make whatever changes to upper management he wants. And he doesn't have to consult the board, although he says he will.

Cala continues to say that he is not interested in being the long-term superintendent. But, he says: "I'm looking at this as if I'm not an interim superintendent, because I don't know how long I will be here. They may find the perfect candidate, but you never know how these things are going to turn out. There can be a lot of surprises along the way, so I could be here longer than planned."

And he questions whether the current administrative organization would be attractive to a superintendent candidate.

Reorganizing "would be doing the next superintendent a big favor," he says. "It will make the job more attractive. I know that I wouldn't want to walk into this. Besides, I am addressing the problem in phases. I have 27 years of experience. I know how educational systems should work, and I know what's best for kids."

Cala has said he'll present his organizational changes to the School Board later this month.