Q&A With Reading Superintendent Thomas Milaschewski

READING, MA — Dr. Thomas Milaschewski assumed his role as superintendent of Reading schools July 1. Milaschewski, who most recently served as a superintendent resident in Medford, was selected by the School Committee to succeed John Doherty in February.

Reading Patch sat down with Milaschewski to discuss his path to the superintendency, goals for the upcoming school year and some of the challenges the district will face coming out of the pandemic.

Tell me a bit about your background and how you got into school administration.

I started my career as a teacher, as both a middle school special education and ESL teacher. And also as a high school math and special education teacher. I was also a school-based administrator at the Jeremiah Burke School in Boston and then was a principal of the Bates Elementary School in Salem.

I learned the ropes of the superintendency through a doctoral program at Harvard, where in the last year of the program you work alongside a superintendent. Last year I worked alongside Dr. Marice Edouard-Vincent in Medford, which was a great way, especially in the COVID context, to learn the ins and outs of the superintendency with someone attached at the hip 24/7. Who better to work with than someone who is dynamic, innovative, passionate, a leader who really demands excellence and equity for her schools? What an opportunity for me.

I feel thrilled to walk into a community that really cares about education, has a great track record of promoting excellence, a community that really supports its schools, and also a community that I think is excited about post-pandemic context and how we can make sure we're delivering on an excellent education for every student. I feel very fortunate to be part of the Reading community.

On that note, what do you think makes Reading and its school system unique?

What's been interesting for me is I was named the superintendent back in February, which has given me a good five months to be able to learn about the community. While I've only been sitting in the seat for about three weeks, these few months of being able to learn have taught me a few things I think are really interesting about and unique to Reading.

First, it's hard to talk about Reading without talking about the amazing staff. This comes from the perspectives of students, the perspectives of staff, the perspectives of families, of central office, that really the district is comprised of a top-tier educator force. Teachers and staff members who are dedicated, talented and dynamic. I think that really defines the experience that students will get in Reading through these top-notch educators.

I think another thing that makes Reading unique is its commitment to a well-rounded education. We know that Reading prides itself on solid academic programming, but I think the educational experience in Reading goes deeper than that. It's a community that really cares about extracurriculars, really cares about the arts, about music, about athletics.

I think that those, when you talk about what brings or excites students about their school experience in Reading, a lot of times it's not only their school day, but it's these things that are happening after school. Reading has an incredible reputation of having top-tier programming in areas outside just the traditional academic day.

Those are two things that really make the community unique. The third thing is a deeply supportive community. One piece of evidence of that is a few years ago the override in the community to provide more funding to our schools, but I think it's deeper than that. I think you have a community that families and parents want to be engaged, deeply care about their schools and want to partner with schools to support their children's education.

The combination of a commitment to a well-rounded education, top-tier staff, with a community that is deeply invested in education, I think is what makes Reading really unique – and primed to take that next step and move forward.

Since you don't have a background in the Reading Public Schools, what would you say to people who may view you as an outsider?

First, I'd like to say I feel really fortunate to have received such a warm welcome from my first few weeks in the job. So many people have reached out to say hello, to introduce themselves, and to welcome me to the community. So even though I am an outsider I feel welcomed.

With that said, I think the responsibility is on me right away to get to know as many people as I can across the community. I recently shared my entry plan, and one of the key parts of that is to build relationships right away with as many stakeholders as I can. If I get to meet people face-to-face, and get to know them, and we are able to collaborate on different things, I think that is how you start to build trust.

Once we know each other, once we have a relationship, once we get to collaborate, I think that will build trust. That's the kind of trust that in a lot of these tight-knit communities has been built between people, and that I really look forward to building with the community as a whole.

What are your priorities coming into this first year?

The first thing I need to do is deeply understand the community. It's difficult to envision where we want to go without knowing the community, and when I say knowing the community, I mean to know the unique strengths of the community, the unique challenges of the community. And to hear the perspectives of people across the community – what are the opportunities for us to move forward, and what do people think are the paths to get there?

My priorities are to learn through listening, to learn through building relationships, and then as I'm doing that, start to build a collaborative vision of where we're going. As we come out of the pandemic, where do we want Reading to go?

My biggest job is to get everyone in the community behind a shared vision for where we're going as the Reading Public Schools.

What are some challenges facing the district?

The biggest challenge we're going to face is, what is post-pandemic education going to look like in Reading? We know that going back and shifting back to the way things were, wasn't necessarily working for students before. So how do we envision a new future where we can continue some of the things that were working before the pandemic, incorporate some of the innovations during the pandemic that made schooling better for students and at the same time try to think about how we start to address the challenges the pandemic presented: potential learning loss, potential students who haven't been in school for over a year, some of the social and emotional challenges of coming back in. I think that's a big challenge that all school districts are going to face – how do we get students back in, and what should school look like for them once they're back in?

That's one piece that's for everyone. For us in Reading, what's unique is there's a lot of transition and turnover, especially at the central office level. So we have a new superintendent, a new assistant superintendent for learning and teaching, a new HR director, a new METCO director, a new high school principal and two new elementary principals. That's a lot of transition, and I think there's opportunity in any transition, but at the same time, it's really important that we can quickly learn what's happened and be able to ensure in the transition we don't lose momentum of things that are working.

With a lot of new people, it's important that we come together, and as a leadership team across the district, that we are united and collaborative. It's important that right away we hit the ground running as a team.

What are some of the ways you're doing that?

The two things we're really excited about this summer are our upcoming leadership retreat, which is a chance for our coordinators, directors, school leaders, central office staff to come together, gel as a team and set some priorities for where we're going. That time will be collaborative time, not for me to come in and sort of say this is what we're doing, but to say as a team, how do we move the work forward?

The second is we have our School Committee retreat, which is co-led between myself and our School Committee. It's a chance for us to think big picture. Where do we want to bring the Reading Public Schools and collaborate around a high-level vision for moving our district forward.

Through those two opportunities, it's a chance for us to collaborate, set the direction for the future and gel as a team. In addition to that, it's just the day-in, day-out, building lines of communication, taking time to get to hear people, listen to their ideas, their thoughts, their concern, but those are the two things we're most excited about.

What are some valuable leadership traits and characteristics you've learned leading up to your time as superintendent?

You can define what I'm about as a leader in three things:

The first is I'm someone who believes in excellence. What I've found in my time in education, as a teacher, as a principal and as a central office administrator, is when you hold students to a really high bar for excellence, and you support them to get there, they're capable of amazing things. As a district, we need to hold that bar for excellence and support our students to get there.

The second thing is I believe strongly in the importance of equity. That needs to be at the center of a district's focus. What I mean by equity is the importance of providing every student with what they need to be successful. That means we need to be willing to look at that across lines of race, across lines of socioeconomic status, disability status, we need to be able to talk about equity, and we need to be able to make sure we are removing barriers and ensuring every student is in a position to be successful. I've found that when we do that, it betters outcomes for all students.

The third thing is I believe that the best way to do the work – the only way to do the work – is collaboratively. I think this work is far too challenging to do alone. The most powerful work is done among teams, and that's teams of teachers, teams of parents, teams of teachers and parents. Between and across stakeholder groups, we need to make sure there are systems of collaboration.

In order for me to step into this community and be successful, I need to live out those values of excellence, equity and collaboration.

Read the superintendent's entry plan below: