Frederick (Doc) Holliday's neatly typed two-page suicide note was addressed "to the citizens of Cleveland and the children and staff of the Cleveland public schools." He wrote: "I have enjoyed until now being your superintendent. As of this moment, it appears my last piece of dignity is being stripped. The fighting among school board members and what petty politics is doing to the system has sickened me. I wanted so much for Cleveland Schools to improve greatly." After finishing his note, Cleveland's first black school superintendent, a 58-year-old Harvard University graduate, shot himself in the chest with a .357 revolver.
Even Holliday's most bitter political enemies were stunned last week when it became evident how badly life had soured for the superintendent. Holliday had come to Cleveland in 1982 from a successful career in Philadelphia and New Jersey public schools. By most accounts, he inherited one ofthe worst school systems in the country -- close to chaos and bankruptcy. But the 77,000-student system noticeably improved under Holliday's stewardship. Student reading scores were on the rise, enrollment had stabilized, and Cleveland voters had approved an extra $33 million school levy to be used partly for higher salaries for teachers.
However, infighting with the school board led to talk that the superintendent's contract would not be renewed this year. Holliday grew especially discouraged when the three blacks on the seven-member board turned out to be his most rancorous opponents. In one case, the three threatened to withhold vital support from the school-levy increase unless Holliday, against his wishes, appointed their choice for school business manager. He was also dismayed when Sen. John Glenn's office called to complain after a politically well-connected assistant principal was transferred. "He didn't have the stomach for politics," says school-board member Joseph Tegreene. "He was sickened by what it took to run the system, and he saw no end to it."
Style: "The purpose seems to be lost," he wrote in his suicide note. "There is a mindlessness that has nothing to do with the education of children . . . Use this event to rid yourselves of petty politics, racial politics, greed, hate and corruption. This city deserves better." Characteristically, the strict classroom disciplinarian whose ebullient style had won the affection of the system's children, saved his final word for the students themselves, typing an apologetic postscript to his note: "Kids, if there are any errors in this letter, I did not proof it carefully."