|
By
Superintendent
Jonathan P. Raymond
 View
video
(Prepared
Remarks from August 10, 2009 news conference)
Good morning, everybody, and thanks for coming. It’s
great to be out here, even for a short visit like this one – and I’m
really looking forward to being out here full-time!
This is my first media briefing with all of you, but certainly not my
last. I thought I would begin by telling you a little about myself, my
general philosophy, some broad plans I have for the Sacramento City
Unified School District and how I plan to spend my first 90 to 100
days as your superintendent.
First, I want to thank President Grimes and the other School Board
members for their confidence in me. I also want to thank interim
superintendent Susan Miller and the rest of the staff – many that have
joined us today – for their service to the children of this community.
I had an opportunity to visit Sacramento in Dec. 2007 and fell in love
with the city and area at that time. This was reaffirmed in my visit
this past June and July. My wife Julie and I are looking forward to
moving to the area and becoming part of the community. My three kids
are excited too - They can’t wait to see the mountains!
The strengths of this school district are real: reputation for
innovation; focus on continuous improvement; diversity and passion in
the community for education. There is much to build upon – helping to
lead a good urban school district to be great!
Without question there are lots of fiscal challenges in
California – while they are extreme these challenges are not isolated
just to California.
I learned at an early age the power that a great teacher can have on
the life of an individual child.
I am coming to Sacramento from a district 3,000 miles away –
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina. Like Sacramento, CMS
is a diverse, urban district with a lot of successes, even more
potential and some significant challenges. I hope that my experience
in North Carolina will help me as I begin my work here.
For the last three years, I have worked as the CMS chief
accountability officer. That experience, plus my other
education-related expertise, will shape and drive many of my plans
here.
My experience has also shaped my philosophy. I believe
that it is the obligation of any school district to put children
first. I also believe that leadership and accountability go hand in
hand. Leadership means owning your work, taking responsibility for it.
Educating children is one of the most – maybe THE most – important
responsibility our society has. How well we do it will determine our
children’s future, as well as our own. It’s not only a moral and
social issue – it’s a business one. Schools are the most important
indirect economic investment a community can make. How well our
schools do determines the future for all of us.
So my philosophy is that children come first and adults have a
responsibility to educate children well. To do that, I think we need
to make sure we meet some important general standards. They are:
transparency, accountability and a culture of collaboration. I’m
going to talk about each one of these in a little detail.
Transparency means sharing information with all of the people who are
involved in children’s education. Parents, citizens, the community at
large – all of us should be, indeed must be, involved in public
education. We can’t expect people to support something they don’t
understand or know much about. So as a district, we have an obligation
to be transparent, to share information and to be honest and
straightforward with parents and the public.
The next big standard is accountability. Accountability is more than
just numbers on a page, or scores on a test sheet – although those are
important, too! Accountability means all of us in public education
taking responsibility for our work. We must make sure that work is
effective and efficient – that schools are well run and children are
learning and
achieving. I believe that adults must be held responsible for their
work, and I also believe it’s important that they have the support
they need to succeed.
For our school district, that means we must be clear about what
schools control and what they don’t. One big thing we can control is
the quality of teaching and learning. Another is the leadership at the
school level. We need to also look at sustainability: When something
works, can we expand it? Can we sustain it across the entire district?
How best can we do that? And if it isn’t working we need to make
changes. In both cases we need to focus on how we can continuously
improve. In order to answer those questions, we need a culture of
collaboration. We need to work together. We need to collaborate within
schools and across the entire district. We need to share our successes
and talk over our challenges, because we can learn from each other.
No one has all the answers – so we need to collaborate, to work
together, to succeed.
So, those are the big philosophical things that I am bringing to
Sacramento. Some of you are probably saying, Yeah, but what is he
actually going to DO? Good question – but I can’t answer it yet. It’s
much too soon for me to tell you what specifically I plan to do
here, except for one thing: My first 90 to 100 days will be spent
listening to the many members of this community, and learning from
them. I’ll also be listening and learning while I visit our schools
and get to know the district, the administrators, the principals, the
teachers and the students. I feel some urgency about this, because I
am eager to begin my work. But I also recognize that it’s important
for me to take time to listen and to learn – and I hope to hear from
everyone in this community!
That is my short introduction for all of you. Now I’m going to open it
up for questions, and I’ll try to give you as many answers as I can.
But when I don’t know something, I’ll tell you that too. Since I am
new, I’d like for each of you to tell me who you are and your media
outlet or community affiliation – are you a parent, a public official,
a teacher –
before you ask your question. That will help me get to know you.
Now I’ll take the first question….click here for
more Superintendent
Jonathan P. Raymond news
|
