Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, who last week completed her first month on the job, informed 218 academic coaches that their jobs were eliminated as of this Monday.

"From my own investigation and looking at how we spend our resources," Ackerman said yesterday, "one of the things that was clear to me is that we have multiple layers of coaches with varying job descriptions with little or no performance criteria for how they got the jobs."

In addition, three of the highest-ranking school officials left the district this week.

Interim Chief Academic Officer Cassandra Jones retired, Chief Accountability Officer LaVonne M. Sheffield resigned to take an education position in Louisiana, and Albert Bichner, deputy chief academic officer, resigned to take a position with Foundations Inc., a New Jersey-based education organization that has a contract to manage four district schools.

"Just because people leave does not mean you're going to see a downward turn, not if we have done the right thing for schools," Ackerman said. "We will take what they've done and try to build on it."

The academic coaches - veteran teachers who do a variety of jobs such as mentoring and training teachers - were given a choice to return to teaching students this fall or apply for new positions that are being developed to replace their current jobs.

"Some people think the gains in test scores are due to the academic coaches, and now they are being laid off," said a school administrator who asked that her name not be used.

Ackerman said that no one is being laid off. The new positions will be open in a couple of weeks and are being designed based on the needs of schools as identified by her transition team and input from others.

The school district spent about $15 million this year on academic coaches who work in schools, regional offices and at the 440 N. Broad St. central administration building, Ackerman said.

"This is not about the adults in the central office. There are managers, I'm sure, who are very upset," she said. "It's a new day. People are unhappy with this, but I mean what I say, and I say what I mean. We are here to support schools first."

After the positions are redesigned with spelled-out outcomes, there could be fewer academic coaches this fall, Ackerman said.

Staying in their positions will be 11 new-teacher coaches and 53 reading coaches who were found to have well-defined job responsibilities, Ackerman said.

As for the academic coaches, she said: "There is no coherent strategy for what we want them to do and how we want to deploy them."

In another development, Ackerman has expanded the number of regions that schools are grouped in from eight to 10 by reactivating the Southwest and Central East regions.

Francisco Duran, a former San Francisco principal, was hired to be superintendent of the Central East Region, while Greg Shannon, the former superintendent for a group of low-performing district schools, was tapped to become the Southwest Region superintendent.

Pam Brown, a administrator from the Charlotte, N.C., school district, was hired to fill the superintendent vacancy in the Northwest Region.

Wilfredo Ortiz, formally superintendent of the district's East Region, has been tapped to head a new office in charge of high schools.

Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said the moves Ackerman is making are to be expected from a new superintendent.

"All over this country, whenever a new superintendent comes in, you can expect the system to evolve," he said. "We have to see what positions Dr. Ackerman puts in place before evaluating them good, bad or indifferent," he said.

"Obviously there were a lot of good things that happened over the last several years, but our opinion is that there was not enough attention paid to the classrooms. So in some ways it should not be surprising that Dr. Ackerman wants to shake things up," said Helen Gym, a founder of Parents United for Public Education.

"She says she wants to strengthen schools and teachers . . . so that is what our hopes and expectations are," she continued.

"What's going to matter is how students, teachers and parents feel in September. That will determine the success of the shake-up." *