MARIETTA - Dr. Michael Hinojosa, who is poised to be Cobb's next school superintendent pending a June 8 school board vote, says he will not come in "with guns blazing," but instead embark on 90 days of listening to staff, parents and the community to understand Cobb. Hinojosa, 54, who visited with Journal reporters Monday morning, said he believes he is a good match for Cobb and would like to finish his career here.

"I have the skill-sets to do this job," he said. "I believe in students, and I believe that as an educator and as a superintendent, you have to put the structures in place so students are successful. I don't care where the students come from or what they look like."

Hinojosa, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico, said he was not familiar with particular federal immigration-enforcement programs used in Cobb, such as the Cobb Jail's participation in the 287(g) program, or the E-Verify program, though he touted his personal history as "the great American success story."

"My parents had a third-grade education, and they brought us to the greatest country in the world so we could have a fighting chance and get an education, and now their grandkids are in Ivy League schools," he said. "That just tells you that all kids can be successful. ... We can't ask where kids come from. Wherever they come from, we're going to educate them and do the best we can to support them and make sure they're successful."

Hinojosa, the eighth of 10 children, was born in the Mexican border town of Nuevo Laredo. In 1959, when he was 3, his family moved to U.S.

"I was legal, and we had all our documentation," he said. "My dad got all those arranged when I was 2 years old."

His father served as a pastor to a Spanish-speaking Assembly of God church in Lubbock, Texas.

"My father was a minister, and he was able to get a church and then later ... I was able to take the courses, and of course pass, and get my citizenship going off to college," he said.

"I think I was 18. I have a picture of it just going into college. Very proud. It was kind of 'I'm a man now, and I'm a United States citizen and I'm proud.'"

Although his family were all naturalized around the same time, he said, they didn't do it at first because "We didn't know what we were supposed to do and how to do it."

"I think we were just ignorant," he said. "We realized we were going to stay here, and we wanted to benefit from all the rights, to be able to vote."

Not surprisingly, he had nice words for the people he hopes will hire him. He's watched several months' worth of board meetings online, and he said Cobb's board "is much more professional" than the nine-member board in Dallas.

"They disagree, but they're much more professional in how they disagree," he said. "Some of my board meetings are not that professional."

School boards, he said, "have authority and responsibility to request information, request reports about how the district is accomplishing their goals. ... They have a very critical role of oversight and asking questions and making sure you have things on track. In my opinion, the board sets the 'what,' and the administration figures out the 'how.'"

On hot-button issues, Hinojosa said, "there's going to be an elaborate discussion. Right now, the national funders are pushing Dallas to be involved in charters. I told them, 'I don't mind having a conversation, but I am not going to push this if my board doesn't want to go there.' My board. A body corporate. A majority of the board."

He said he made Cobb's board members laugh during his May 15 interview at the Galleria when he told them that "when you have to make tough decisions, your friends come and go and your enemies accumulate."

"Every tough call you make, somebody's going to be unhappy, and they aren't going to forget it," he said.

On the issue of school start dates, Hinojosa said there is no evidence showing any particular start date is better for student achievement.

"There is no evidence. It's a preference. People can tell you and sell you on year-round schools, or early starts or late starts ... it's how good of a system do you have for your kids. The calendar date can be adjusted. But there is no overwhelming evidence that points one way or the other," he said.

Texas state law requires schools start no earlier than the third week in August, but Hinojosa said he does not believe that start date is a disadvantage - although his preference would be to finish the semester before the break.

"The only place it hurts, and you have to overcome it, is that your first semester ends after the break," he said. "Teachers want to get all their stuff in and kids go for two weeks."

He uses a calendar committee before making his recommendation, he said.

"It's not Michael's calendar. I always have a calendar committee made up of teachers, staff and community members, and we do polling and things. We start in August and then by December we approve our calendar for next year. We take significant input, then analyze that feedback and see where we need to go for the best interests of the district."

Hinojosa estimated that the Dallas board seldom rejected his recommendations.

"I bet they've overturned my recommendation just a handful of times. ... But you know what? You get up, dust yourself off, shake hands, and go," he said.

He vows that he has no preconceived notions about any issues in Cobb, and that he won't be bringing any "petty Dallas politics" here.

"Yes, there've been some issues, but it's my responsibility to figure that out and be deliberate," he said. "I am decisive, but not until I have all the information to make good decisions. And as soon as I have that, I'm going to share that with the board first."

Hinojosa also does not expect to bring any executives with him from Texas.

"I've never done that," he said. "It's my job to find the talent in the system ... and I'm already impressed with the staff," he said. "I think there are plenty of great people here. When I come in, I do an entry plan that takes 90 days. I'm going to talk to 100 people in 90 days. I'm going to come in and listen. I have five power questions. One of those will tell me who the most respected people on staff are, and also tell me who the most influential people in the community are. Then you don't come in with preconceived notions."

Hinojosa said he believes issues raised by the system's accreditating body are the district's top priorities.

"There's some issues that the Southern Association has cited the school board on," he said. "And so that's job one. We need to make sure we meet those requirements as a group. I have immediate plans to address that so we can get that behind us."

Restoring the public's trust in the board is priority No. 2, he said.

"I think in the first 90 days I'll figure out what that really means - I've seen the last five board meetings and saw people wearing T-shirts about trust, and so I want to know what are the issues behind all of that. What's the story behind the story behind the story, and I think those will be the critical, most important things I need to deal with moving in this position."

He spends every Wednesday inside a school, meeting with people from the head custodian to the principal and then observing classrooms, he said.

"I've done that my whole career. I don't take appointments on Wednesdays, except I see they have board meetings on one Wednesday a month here. But the other Wednesdays, I'll go to schools unannounced. I drive around the campus, I meet the head custodian, the cafeteria staff, the principal, then I walk around looking at all the classrooms. When you've been doing this awhile, you can kind of thin-slice what's going on in the classroom. Are the students engaged, are they learning, is it rigorous learning?"

Such visits are also expected of executive staff and principals, he said.

"We trained all of our principals to be in the classroom two days a week," he said. "I expect all my executive staff to be out in the schools or at the work sites. We call them 'coaching days.'"

As for his contract, Hinojosa said that Cobb "has been more than fair" and that he doesn't expect any problems with any provisions, though he and the board haven't worked out whether he will be compensated for moving expenses. He also is not worried about a local law that requires a superintendent's contract to expire six months after a new board is seated, which would be June 30, 2013. If approved by the board, he would start work July 1. His contract can be renewed on a rolling, "evergreen," status in January 2013, which would allow him to maintain a three-year contract at all times, school board attorney Clem Doyle of Brock, Clay, Calhoun and Rogers said.

"This is a unique opportunity, and if they don't like me, if the community doesn't like me, if I'm not adding value, then I don't deserve to be the Cobb County superintendent after two years," he said. "I'm 54, I have a lot of energy, and I want to work till I'm 60. I'd love to come here and work at least six more years, but if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. One thing I learned to survive in Dallas: I don't have to win every battle, I just need to win the war, and the war is helping kids be successful.

"I've had to swallow my pride and take a few hits, and get up like a big boy and smile and come back to work the next day, because people were depending on me," he said. "I didn't know that as a young whipper-snapper. I wanted to win everything. But sometimes when you win, you lose."

His salary in Cobb will be $237,000, considerably less than his Dallas salary of $328,000, though he will be able to draw Texas retirement pay that is "north of $200,000," he said.

One concrete difference between working in Cobb and working in Dallas is that he will not have a driver, he said.

In Dallas "the district has always had a police officer who drives the superintendent to appointments, though the police officer has other duties, too. I didn't even know that was part of the job when I was hired there. Previous superintendents had him drive them 24/7, but I said I can drive my own self to evening events," he said.

Hinojosa, who grew up and has spent his entire career in Dallas, also insists he wasn't planning to leave Texas before Cobb came calling and acknowledged criticism there over his sudden departure. Hinojosa's name was provided by a superintendent in Texas who had served as a reference for a previous candidate who was considered earlier in the Board's search process, Doyle said.

"Things do change," he said. "One of the top districts in America calls you, and just two weeks before, my son, who lives in DeKalb County, tells me I'm going to be a grandpa. The context changed, and here's a unique opportunity ... Being superintendent in Dallas for six years, that's a long time in dog years."

Hinojosa had four years left on a five-year contract in Dallas.

"Now, at least they're upset I might be leaving," he said with a laugh. "It would be worse if they offered to help me pack and said 'get him out of here.'"

Hinojosa had lunch with the district's executive cabinet and school board member David Banks before holding a "meet and greet" with the community at Campbell High School on Monday afternoon.

Only two board members turned out: board Vice Chairman Scott Sweeney, and Tim Stultz, whose post encompasses the school.

In addition to a number of parents, Smyrna Mayor Max Bacon, Smyrna Mayor Pro Tem Wade Lnenicka and state Rep. David Wilkerson (D-Austell) turned out, along with a batch of central office staffers and former board member Holli Cash, whom Stultz ousted in last year's election.

"He has a wealth of experience leading different types of school districts, and taking pieces of each of those places that he's been, I think, brings to what the overall feel of Cobb County is," Stultz said. "He's been inner city, he's been in suburban school settings, he's had success wherever he's gone ... he brings a wealth of experience that will help with our diverse population down here. Closing the achievement gap is very important and something that he's had some success in doing."

Said Sweeney: "Michael is the standout candidate of the people that we interviewed. That's the reason that he's standing here today. There was tremendous qualified candidates that we had come and visit with us that we interviewed, but collectively among the board members we felt that Michael would be the best person to lead us forward."

Hinojosa told the crowd that he "met with a lot of people today and I'm very, very impressed." "You have a lot to be proud of. However, we also need to get better because we're going to be competing with kids all over the world when our students graduate in Cobb. So I hope that I can add some value to that. I'm confident that I can. I also am confident that I can work with this school board in a unified way to make this the premiere school district in America."