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SCHOOL JOURNAL

Sitting Down With The Superintendent

David Mills
Connection Staff
September 2007

Emeryville schools begin the 2007-2008 year with optimism, dedication and resolve.

Leading that charge is Superintendent Tony Smith, who has shepherded the district through its rebuilding years.

Just days before classes resumed, The Emeryville Connection sat down and talked with the superintendent.

EC: What can parents and students look forward to this next year in the Emeryville school district?

Smith: “I’m really excited about the leadership structure at both schools. Just how committed, how clear, how strong the leadership is at both schools. I think when you find high-performing schools you find wonderful principals, you find really dedicated, thoughtful, good teachers in classrooms, you find parents and families included and involved all the time. We are really this year as committed as ever and we have more reason to believe we’ll have more parent involvement.”

EC: One thing people are going to notice immediately is Emery Secondary has a football team this year. Are you excited about that?

Smith: “Oh, very. That’s one of those things that’s taken awhile… I think the fact we are bringing football back this year shows the (school) system itself is much more healthy.”

EC: What can parents, students and community members look for in the next 5 to 10 years.

Smith: “We are trying to create a school district that is the primary social and community service agency in Emeryville. We’ve built strong partnerships with the city and community services department. Now, we’re talking about how we can provide a high-quality, rigorous education that supports kids before, during and after school and how we can create facilities that actually can support these high-quality programs… We definitely know we need to build a new high school. Our goal is within five years to be building a new high school with a real clear focus on science, math and art – the Emeryville SMART high school. It’s in our future.”

EC: Measure A is an integral part of all this, isn’t it?

Smith: “Yes, it is. When 87 percent of the voters in Emeryville approve a parcel tax that says what you’ve been doing is good, we need you to continue that and we believe in it so much that we’re going to increase the amount we tax ourselves for 10 years more. In some ways, there’s no clearer mandate.”

EC: Are you a little worried that people might expect too much too quickly?

Smith: “They should want to see that. One of my primary roles is to be the lead educator in the community and keep people understanding they should demand and expect excellence and I need to keep helping them understand what our trajectory has been.”

EC: How do you go about recruiting high-quality teachers?

Smith: “We have created some buzz, I think. People have heard about the kind of support teachers get here. They’ve heard that it’s not a school that just wants to be a good school, that’s it’s about a community movement. That there are these relationships that make your classroom a center of community life itself.”

EC: There has also been talk of vocational training. What’s the future of that?

Smith: “I want every single one of our students who graduates with us to be college ready. Not every young person is going to choose college, but it has to be their choice. Too often, that choice gets made for them by scheduling or because they didn’t pass a class… I want every one of our kids to end their time with us eligible and able to choose a four-year college. However, they should have the skills required and the ability to choose a career path.”

EC: Final question, Emeryville schools have made quite a turnaround. Why do you think that has happened?

Smith: “I think Emeryville had a rare opportunity of looking in the mirror as a community and saying, ‘Do we or don’t we value education?’”… People said, ‘Should we even have a school district?’ Then, slowly but surely people said, ‘Who are we without schools? What are we doing for our young people? How do we actually come together? What’s our identity?’ All the core questions that come around with education and schools. Emeryville got to ask itself. Then, we got to say, ‘How are we going to do that for real?’… You can say the business community, the city government, the residents, the school district institutionally have made commitments, but it’s the people who have chosen to make this different.”

David Mills is a writer for The Emeryville

Connection. If you have a question or comment, please contact him at ecocnews@gmail.com