Listen, Learn, Ask for Help

Dennis Loftus, a humble leader, honored with the 2023 John H. Taylor, Jr. Educational Leadership Award

BY KIM HOEY

IT IS NOT AN EXAGGERATION to say that Dennis Loftus shaped and changed the face of education in the state of Delaware.

Over the course of his 50-plus-year career, Loftus was a teacher, principal, superintendent, supervisor, mentor, and a friend. He reworked the New Castle County Vocational schools into a model that was copied around the country; mentored more than half the superintendents in the state; helped develop the educational leadership program at the University of Delaware; and worked on committees to create a “world-class education system” for Delaware.

Yet if you ask him about his career, the word you’ll hear most isn’t ”I”, but “we”.

“He’s a wonderful man,” says Robert Rescigno, assistant vice president of partnerships and community affairs for Wilmington University and a member of the team who chose Loftus for the 2023 John H. Taylor, Jr. Educational Leadership Award. “He never takes credit for himself.”

The John H. Taylor, Jr. Education Leadership Award recognizes leaders within the community who have provided sustained leadership in advancing Delaware education and who, by doing so, has also made our community a better place in which to live and work.

Loftus is extremely honored to receive the award memorializing someone who cared about the community and education as much as Taylor did. Loftus met Taylor when he went to the News Journal to complain about the unflattering editorials being written about his schools. Taylor was the head of the editorial board at the time. Taylor taught Loftus how to tell the story of the schools. They were friends for years.

As nominees were being considered for the award, it became apparent that most of them were products of the Dennis Loftus school of mentoring, says Rescigno, a former high school principal who was himself mentored by Loftus. The committee decided it was time to honor the man who helped lead so many others to success.

One of Loftus’ great strengths was his ability to bring different people together. As superintendent of the New Castle County Vocational Technical (NCCVT) School District, he had an advisory group of more than 300 business and community leaders working together. They’d tell him what skills businesses needed in employees and Loftus would make sure those skills were part of his curriculum.

“People really are willing to help you if they find out how they can,” says Loftus.

Some of those skills added up to big changes in Delaware education.

In the early 1990s, he transformed the NCCVT structure from half-day to full-day, adding rigorous academics on top of vocational training. It led to a shift in how all schools in Delaware looked at education. Rescigno points out that the career pathways programs in high schools today evolved out of Loftus’ vocational school model.

A 1996 New York Times article about Loftus’ vo-tech schools stated he created “the prototype of vocational education of the future.”

His strength was his focus, and that focus was always on how to make education better in order to help more students, says Rescigno.

“I never got the feeling that he was driving anything; that he wanted anything. He was always sincere and always, ‘How can I help?’” says Chad Carmack, a former administrator for the Red Clay School District who was also mentored by Loftus.

Loftus was very close with his staff as well as the students and administrators he mentored. Gene Bottoms, author of Tomorrow’s High School: Creating Student Pathways for Both College and Career and a longtime friend, remembers Loftus coming to conferences with his team of administrators. He challenged them to find somebody doing something better than what they were doing. They were to bring those ideas back to Delaware where Loftus would figure out how to support them in implementation.

His style wasn’t to tell someone what to do, but perhaps help that person come to the correct conclusion on his or her own.

“You don’t have to have any more great ideas,” he used to tell superintendents. “You need to talk to people about your problems and challenges, and listen to them.”

“Workers are happier, more productive, and love coming to work if they have a part in designing a solution rather than being told what to do,” says Loftus. “And when they do that, you’re going to see that difference in the service and the product you provide.”

Loftus loved coming to work every day. At 81, he’s been retired for seven years, but still contributes to state education committees as a volunteer.

“All I did was ask and listen a lot, and a lot of collective energy went together to maybe help a lot of kids and teachers and administrators become better at serving others,” says Loftus on his years of service. “I look at that and I’m not really sure that’s deserving of recognition or award, but it sure was a fun journey.”