Payzant races to finish

At 6:20 a.m., Thomas W. Payzant steers his immaculate Honda Civic from his South End neighborhood slowly through Boston, using turn signals although the streets are nearly empty.

The superintendent of Boston public schools pulls into his parking spot at the school system's downtown headquarters and then darts in sneakers, a black pinstriped suit, and an olive trench coat through wind and rain to a nearby gym.

Intent on preventing wrinkles, he wears his suit over shorts and a T-shirt, rather than stuff work clothes into his backpack. While exercising on the elliptical machine, the 64-year-old superintendent reads articles about education policy.

Payzant, who carries a typed daily schedule in a blazer pocket, recalls that 10 years ago he was considered the most boring finalist for the top job in the Boston schools. Spending a day with him highlights his strengths, as well as his shortcomings. Low-key and even-tempered, he slips into schools unannounced and puts students at ease and prods them to open up about what's going on in their schools.

But, meeting with a group of black educators, he's methodical and long-winded, delivering a 30-minute speech nonstop, detailing the system's painstakingly slow progress raising the achievement of black and Hispanic students.

With eight months left on the job, he wants to be remembered as more than Mr. Stability. As the public discussion begins to shift from Payzant's performance to what the next superintendent should accomplish, he is staying focused and racing against time to ensure that the changes he made will stick.

He's trying to hasten progress on restructuring the high schools, which he says he wished he could have begun earlier to raise test scores and reduce dropout rates. Still, during a visit to the former Hyde Park High School, he told an administrator: ''It's full speed ahead."

He divided Hyde Park and other high schools into smaller, autonomous schools, so students would get more attention from teachers and, hopefully, do better.

Payzant arrives unannounced for his first glimpse of Hyde Park's new schools. The assistant headmaster of the Social Justice Academy takes him on a tour of classes she picked out. He visits two, but later pops into other classrooms, classrooms led by substitutes.

''Why don't you have an assignment?" he asks a girl talking to her friend. She pulls the fur-trimmed hood of her jacket over her face, ducking the question.

School staff stop to tell him that the smaller schools have led to better student behavior and instruction.

But Payzant says, ''You got to talk to the kids to find out what's going on." He questions nearly every student he encounters.

Four boys in a geometry class at The Engineering School within Hyde Park call him over, wanting to complain about losing the freedom to wander the building. Payzant listens and then steers the conversation to a heftier topic.

''How many of you have started to think about college?" he asks.

''I don't want to go," says Rophy Castro, a sophomore from Hyde Park who says he wants to manage a McDonald's. ''It's a waste of time. I already know my stuff."

''A high school diploma is not going to be enough, my friend," Payzant says. ''Don't tell me you're not smart. Start thinking college now."

He drums college into every student he meets, even the fifth-grader at the neighboring elementary school who asks if he is the president of Boston schools.

Shortly after 12:30 p.m., he cuts short the elementary school visit, so he can drive back downtown for a 1 p.m. meeting.

''Argh," Payzant says when he sees a black Ford parked in his reserved spot. ''That really fries me. It happens all the time."

It's the only time during the day when Payzant is visibly frustrated. He tosses his keys to the security guard and asks him to move the Honda. He bought the car from his assistant of 24 years, Jean Lesik, in February after the 76-year-old woman became legally blind and lost her license. He rushes to the seventh floor, grabs the ham-and-cheese sandwich he made the night before and heads into a meeting with his deputies.

When tensions flare at his next meeting, a two-hour session with roughly 20 administrators, Payzant accepts blame for some miscommunication about adding grade levels to a school. But in a room of raised voices, his remains steady.

A short while later, he's back in the Honda, driving to a Roxbury church to meet with the Black Educators' Alliance of Massachusetts. Standing in front of 50 teachers and principals, Payzant outlines what the school system has done in recent years to boost student achievement and what still needs to be done.

''And I think this is going to be important for my successor to understand," Payzant says. ''The key issue is proficiency and closing the gap . . . and having discussions about race, increasing the diversity of the staff."

Most of the educators listen intently, except for one, who nods off. ''I'm not quitting until midnight June 30, so there's plenty more work we can get done together," Payzant says.

He drives home and walks into the four-level rowhouse he shares with his wife, Ellen, his high school sweetheart.

Payzant greets the dog first. He goes downstairs to kiss his wife and then changes into jeans and a sweatshirt. At 7:15 p.m., he's home an hour earlier than usual. He unpacks his laptop and sits at the dining room table to reply to 55 e-mails.

''In the early days, Tom would say, 'I'm going to visit a school.' Well, hooray for you, but your kids have things going on, too, you know," Ellen Payzant says while stirring linguine. The couple has three grown children and five grandchildren.

In 2001, after contracting meningitis and encephalitis, Thomas Payzant took three months off from work to recover.

''He's learned to take a little more time to smell the roses," she said of her husband, who came to Boston after working in numerous education posts, including as an assistant education secretary in Washington, D.C.

Otherwise, she says her husband of 43 years has not changed much since the night she met him at a boarding school mixer when both were 16. Thomas Payzant, born in Boston and raised in Quincy, attended the former Mount Hermon School for Boys in Gill and his wife, the former Northfield Seminary for Young Ladies in Northfield.

The couple still dances a mean jitterbug, she says. And they occasionally do the twist around the living room.

''We're 50s rock and roll," Payzant says, smiling, glancing up from his laptop.

But not tonight. After dinner, the superintendent will walk the dog, watch sports on television, and pack for a business trip to Washington, D.C.

Tracy Jan can be reached at tjan@globe.com.