Q&A With Pleasanton's Retiring Superintendent

Editor's Note: This piece has been edited for length.

After eight years with Pleasanton Unified School District, Superintendent John Casey sat in on his last school board meeting Tuesday night.

School Board President Chris Grant praised the educator saying that Pleasanton schools saw improvements in standardized test scores during his tenure. Grant also credited Casey for implementing programs for helping at-risk kids and addressing the achievement gap.

But in recent years, Casey has had to help the district navigate through its most financially challenging times. He oversaw about $13 million in cuts in just the last three years.  

During his tenure, Casey's team also dealt with the repercussions of a controversial deal to build a 10th elementary school. The failed deal ended with the district paying off a $2 million in settlement.

Despite the challenges, Casey's team has maintained a balanced budget for the coming year as a result of successful negotiations with teachers, classified staff and management labor groups.

As he leaves the district, Casey took a moment to sit down with Pleasanton Patch to answer some of our questions and those submitted by readers.

Incoming Superintendent Parvin Ahmadi's term begins July 1.

What were your goals and priorities as an incoming superintendent eight years ago?

Certainly, the Pleasanton Unified School District was already a high performing district and one that had a good reputation. There was still a desire to see what else we could do, what more can we do for students and families to give them the best we possibly can ... to support them both academically as well as emotionally. That whole concept of the big picture or goal of the district to want to be world-class is basically what I walked into.

What are some projects that you are most proud of and what could you have improved on as superintendent?

We were able to create a culture of continuous improvement. The fact is that I think our work here ... set into the psyche of the place, a belief and an acknowledgement and celebration of we're pretty good, but we can still do better. That continuous improvement model was important for us.

Also, we created a strategic plan about six years ago that was futures-based. From that, we created a strategic plan that has seven elements to it: fostering student achievement, being innovative and creative, having a global orientation, being environmentally aware, having strong interpersonal communication skills, having strong personal development and engaging in lifelong learning.

We also pursued a project of the Excellence Committee that produced an excellence study to look at what can we do to be an even better school district in terms of our services to students and families. (This developed 17 recommendations including lowering class sizes, increasing number of science specialists).

The fourth area is equity. We have a problem across this nation: That African American and Latino students tend, as a population, to score ... lower than students of other race groups, so we've attacked that over the past three years. Our belief is that if Pleasanton can't solve that problem ... who can solve that problem?

(In regards to improvement,) all of us can wish that the budget, the global economy hadn't run into its challenges. It would've been very beneficial for the community and the students if we could've passed a parcel tax that could've supported the excellence committee's recommendations.

What is the financial status of the school district now, and what will it take to maintain the high standards of Pleasanton Unified School District?

The district does have a positive budget certification, which means that our prediction is that over the next three years, we will be able to pay our bills and maintain services to students. Two years ago, we cut $2 million, we just finished an $11 cut and next year, we're facing an $8 cut. We've cut a lot of programs and a lot of staff development opportunities. We've increased class sizes, cut a lot of positions across this district in management and classified positions, and we've have had to cut a lot of those support programs for those kids who are falling a little bit below than we'd like them to be.

What it's going to take is either for California to redesign how they fund public education, or a local effort to pass a parcel tax to bring more money into the schools to maintain programs… or it's going to take the economy to turn for the better

If Measure G had passed in 2009, would Pleasanton Unified still be reaching out to the community for support through the CORE fundraiser and how would that parcel tax have helped the district during the economic squeeze?

The parcel tax would've raised about $4.3 million. The parcel tax would've enabled us to not raise class sizes, and maintain reading specialists, custodial services, counseling and student intervention programs.

Some of those got saved any way, but, on the other hand, class sizes went from 20 to 25, counseling got reduced a little bit, custodial services and intervention programs continued to be cut. What Measure G would have done, would be to specifically say that if voters passed the measure and we were able to generate $4.3 million, then those programs would've been supported, because the language of the ballot was that that's where the money was going to go.

Would you say that a parcel tax is more of a necessity now versus back in 2009, and where do you see the district going in terms of building more support this time around?

Many communities do not pass a parcel tax the first time out. The community basically says to the district, "Try some other things first, before you tax us." So when Measure G failed that last summer, we had Pleasanton Partnerships In Education (Foundation) step up and help do some fundraising. They raised about $450,000. This year we have the CORE campaign. That's raised almost $550,000. You have parents who are paying for more sports and clubs. You've got the employees who've made $5.2 million in concessions for this next school year.

Hopefully, the community will see that the district has tried many things in concert with the employees and parents of kids to balance this budget and to continue to provide services. Hopefully, they'll see that the struggle continues on services will have to be diminished to balance the budget. Hopefully, they'll see many other efforts have been tried and now it's time for a parcel tax.

With your retirement and principals retiring and leaving three different schools in the district, what is your perspective on how this may affect the leadership within the district?

Personnel changes and Bill Coupe at Amador retired. Steve Maher at Hart retired. And Parvin Ahmadi -- she's wonderful and I think that transition from me to her is going to be very smooth and effective, so that piece is OK.

The Amador principal (candidates) interviewed June 15 and the second round will be June 21.

Steve Maher's position has been filled at Hart, and now Mohr, the first interviews will be during the week of July 12-16, with a special meeting of the board in July or taking the candidate forward on Aug. 17 for confirmation by the board. Hopefully, we'll finish that up early.

That timeline is not troublesome to me at all. The outgoing principal (of Mohr) will support us as much as she can to ensure a good professional transition, and we will get the process done as quickly as possible to get somebody on and working with the community, parents and staff.

Where is the Neal School development issue at, and, from your perspective, do you believe that the district handled that situation appropriately?

Yes. And it was before my time. When I came in, there were projects on the table, and one was Neal School. What confronted the board all the way along with the Neal School was a disagreement between the developer and the district in what was agreed to, so it was a basic disagreement.

I can only speculate how the disagreement occurred … or what the disagreement was, but there was a disagreement, a legitimate disagreement, so what the board was faced with was to walk away and get nothing or to litigate. And they had to litigate, from my point of view, because the choice of walking away and getting nothing was not a valid choice

The litigation did not come out the way we wanted it to come out, but we've got it set up at this point in time.

During your career, how have you seen schools change and how do you see them changing in the future?

Schools have changed for the better from my observations in the 33 years I have been in education. I think our standards have become clearer, our expectations have become higher, and we're smarter about how to help all kids meet standards.

Sometimes we talk about how schools will be looking very differently than they do now and instruction being very different than it is now, but I don't think so. I think that schools are going to still be here. You know, 25 years from now, 50 years from now, we're still going to have 20-30 students sitting in a class with a teacher.

Marnette Federis contributed to this report.