It was a signature moment at a recent social function of the Young Barbadian Professional Society (YBPS) in Manhattan.
There was Rupee, a leading Barbadian entertainer, belting out some of his most popular tunes, stirring the audience of about 300 Bajans from their seats, forcing them to sing along with the lyrics and in the process let it be known proud to be Bajans.
Among them in the spacious auditorium of Scholastic, a prominent national firm that specializes in educational material, was Dennis Walcott, a slim man with horn-rimmed glasses, and yes, he too, waving his miniature Barbados Flag, as if to underscore his Bajan roots while swaying with the music.
He was full of smiles after he had received the YBPS Barbados Legends Award and with his wife Denise, present and smiling at her spouse, he said that the two of them had known each other since each was about five years old.
It was a year ago last month that Walcott, the grandson of Barbadians, was thrust onto centre stage when Mayor Michael Bloomberg unexpectedly asked him to succeed Cathie Black, who had abruptly resigned after a tumultuous three months at the helm of the nation’s largest school system.
As chancellor, Walcott is responsible for the education of 1.1 million students attending classes at 1 700 public schools in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island. For almost a decade he was Bloomberg’s deputy mayor for education and the presentation of the YBPS award came on his first anniversary as chancellor.
“I have a great and fantastic job,” he said on stage, and as he headed for the bank of elevators and the exit of the skyscraper. He added: “The awards ceremony was truly outstanding.”
The father of four children, the chancellor, a soft-spoken man, has become an important voice for urban education. He took over the school system at a time when it was facing its worst crisis in decades.
In the year since then, he has had to battle everything from raising students’ performance scores in the classroom, how to get rid of idle teachers who can’t get the job done or who have misbehaved in school and the functioning of charter schools, to running a vast bureaucracy at a time of fiscal austerity. Just the other day, Walcott stood at the side of Bloomberg as they announced a plan to discipline or fire a rash of female teachers who were accused of having sex with underage male students.
The chancellor has taken all the challenges in stride while continuing to lead a normal life in the Queens neighbourhood where he grew up, attended public school, raised his children and makes time for his grandsons, especially on Sunday afternoons after attending church where he sings in the choir of St Alban The Martyr, an Episcopal church in Queens.
“I like the challenge myself to do new and different things I’m not comfortable with,” he said of his chorister’s role. “I wear a choir robe and stand in the back row with the basses.”
Walcott, who said shortly after he assumed duties as chancellor that he wanted to improve the department’s relationship with its key partners, especially parents and neighbourhoods through frequent, often unannounced visits to schools and through regular contacts with the teachers’ union, placed civility as a major objective. He has largely succeeded as confrontations between his office, communities and teachers are a thing of the past and no longer attract glaring front page headlines.
Walcott, who along with his wife has visited Barbados on several occasions – “Oh, yes, we have gone many times to Barbados,” she told the Sunday Sun – hits the jogging trail daily to remain trim. He maintains that schedule despite the fact that he has two cars – one provided by the department and the other his own.
“You can measure which hat I am wearing on the weekend by which car I’m driving,” he told a magazine. “For personal things like going to church and the YMCA, I drive my own car . . . . If I have an event to attend, I drive my Department of Education car.”
Although he is one of the highest paid city government officials, Walcott cooks and cleans the 1930 brick Tudor house the couple own and he readily acknowledges his domestic impulses.
“We’ll have the TV on, or listen to the radio and we clean the house,” he explained.
“I’m very domesticated. I can do everything except sew. On Saturdays I go grocery shopping. I can tell you all the price points. My Sunday routine is make two or three different meals, one for Sunday night and the rest for during the week.”