During her 37-year career in education, Donna Durno, executive director of the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, has led a number of efforts.

But the one of which she is the most proud is overseeing the intermediate unit's management of the Duquesne City School District during the past year.

Dr. Durno, who recently announced that she will retire in March, has been the superintendent of record for the Duquesne district, which now serves grades K-8, since July 2007.

At her urging, the intermediate unit took over management of the academically and financially troubled district after the state board of control overseeing it shut down Duquesne High School and the state Legislature reassigned students to either West Mifflin Area or East Allegheny high school.

"I have thoroughly enjoyed my career, but the Duquesne service is the most meaningful thing I have ever done in my life," Dr. Durno said.

In addition to serving as AIU director since 1999, her career has included stints as superintendent of the Mars Area School District and Susquehanna Township School District and as commissioner for basic education for Pennsylvania.

She also was senior vice president of Heald Colleges Inc., a group of 15 junior colleges in California, Oregon and Hawaii, and spent time as an educational consultant. In that role, she spent the 1989-90 school year teaching in 46 schools in 19 states.

Dr. Durno became involved with the Duquesne schools when state education officials asked her if the intermediate unit could provide transitional services to Duquesne students heading to new high schools.

She not only agreed to that, but she offered her agency to manage the struggling elementary program left behind. At the time, the Pittsburgh Public Schools were nearing the end of the one-year contract it had with the state to manage the Duquesne district in the 2006-07 school year.

She made the offer, she said, without checking with her board or staff because she thought it was the right thing to do.

"We have all of these services that we provide to school districts and they are seven miles down the road and they need help," Dr. Durno said.

The AIU took over management of the district late in July 2007, after the agency's board and the state board overseeing Duquesne approved an intergovernmental agreement.

It gave the intermediate unit $300,000 to provide management services to Duquesne. It's a five-year agreement, with annual renewal votes.

The intermediate unit board is set to vote on the first renewal later this month, followed by the Duquesne board of control.

Dr. Durno said when the AIU took over Duquesne, its finances had been put in order by the finance staff of the district and the Pittsburgh Public Schools. But the academic programs were lacking.

The intermediate unit staff spent the first year building the structure of the school and creating the proper environment, Dr. Durno said.

That meant that a curriculum audit was undertaken as was a revamping of the discipline code. Students needed to understand that discipline would be enforced, she said.

Newly hired principal Davaun Barnett is a strict disciplinarian who has brought needed order and calm to the school, Dr. Durno said. At the same time, he socializes with the students, eating lunch with them daily.

Following the curriculum audit, major parts of the curriculum were rewritten, teachers trained and new academic materials purchased with $800,000 the intermediate unit staff discovered in federal funds in Duquesne accounts.

Other additions to the school in the past year included instrumental music, which currently has 30 students enrolled and more on a waiting list, and gifted education. A new student council published an elementary yearbook last year.

Home economics was added to the curriculum, but the teacher recently resigned, putting the program on hold until January. Teacher turnover has been a challenge for the AIU, with a number of teachers leaving for other opportunities in the past year.

In the past year, two reading and two math specialists also were added, as was one coach each for reading and math. The coaches work with teachers and specialists work directly with the students, Dr. Durno said.

Tutoring was increased for seventh- and eighth-graders to prepare them for their transition to the high schools.

The changes weren't in place soon enough to produce positive results on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests in spring. Duquesne scores fell far below state requirements in math and reading.

But Dr. Durno's goal before retirement in March is to see improvements in the interim assessment tests in math and reading, called 4Sight.

"I would like to see gradual growth in the 4Sight test results by the end of the year, as much growth as possible," she said.

That's the legacy she'd like to leave for her successor.