Superintendent sets the tone for district

School’s out for summer, but not for the Superintendent, Glenn Harris. His desk, as usual, is covered with paperwork for 15 to 20 projects demanding documentation, decisions, consultation, research, communication, or all of the above.

The rounds of meetings, phone calls and emails continue throughout “lazy summer days” as he attends to the duties of the Orcas Island School District, meeting program and fiscal requirements for state and federal governments. Harris also directs the Special Education Program (which is handled by a part-time director on Lopez Island, and a full-time director on San Juan Island) and manages the entitlement grants from federal and state agencies – meeting the requirements and documenting how the grants are spent, among other tasks.

Most days have a schedule something like the following:

• 8:30 a.m. meet with principals and teachers for class assignments

• 10:30 a.m. meet with business manager

• 1 p.m. meet with a Special Education parent

• 2 p.m. meet with Superintendents and Administrators via phone call

• 3:30 p.m. meet with custodial candidate

And that’s just the meetings on a random day. Regularly scheduled meetings include School Board meetings, usually twice a month. Ditto the meetings with department heads for school transportation, facilities, food, business and both principals.

Then there are the 40 to 100 “impersonal meetings” by email each day, with a “blank” hour and a half taken up with phone calls.

Then there’s the fun parts of the job – attending a Kiwanis luncheon, presiding at the Senior Projects displays, serving up ice cream on field day, attending the kindergarten appreciation or the end-of-year Celebration of Success.

Inheriting a financially troubled, unstable school district was not what Superintendent Glenn Harris was led to expect when he came to Orcas Island the summer of 2006. But after going over figures that fall with Business Manager Ben Thomas, Harris realized that the “unexpected fiscal reality was that the Board didn’t have accurate information for the district.”

His first year was spent, with the Business Office, the Board, and District staff, “rebuilding” the 2006-2007 budget to find historical figures, developing a strategic plan, cooperating with additional audits for personnel and revenue that were brought on by the fiscal audit findings, borrowing money from the County to bail the district out, producing budget workshops for both the School Board and the public, establishing the alternative High School, renogotiating the District’s three-year contract with the teachers’ union, and formulating the 2007-2008 budget, involving a projected $350,000 deficit.

Before coming to Orcas, Harris taught and was a principal and superintendent in schools in several districts in California. Harris feels that – coming from those districts, where families were plagued with poverty drug, gang and parenting problems – “Those issues have made me a stronger superintendent and principal.” Harris derives great satisfaction on Orcas in seeing how much parents, families, and the community care about what happens in Orcas Island schools. “To see families that are healthy and functional – life is good here,” Harris says.

Harris and his wife Annie have bought a home in the Orcas Highlands. They love to walk and hike the island, and enjoy ruthless card game competitions.

While he loves “the myriad of interesting opportunities” in education – both in teaching and in administration – it’s the kids in the classrooms that keep Harris in education. He tells favorite anecdotes about preschoolers and graduating seniors, saying “The kids are the most awesome part about it.”

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