Dist. 300's new superintendent says change is good
On May 6, the Community Unit District 300 school board picked 44-year-old Michael Bregy, principal of Algonquin's Jacobs High School, to lead the district after Superintendent Ken Arndt retires in 2011.
Bregy sat down with the Daily Herald to discuss his 6-year tenure at Jacobs, his vision for the district and the challenges he will face as superintendent.
Q. What surprised you most about your effort to encourage your students at Jacobs to text-message you with safety concerns?A. Some people outside the district were nervous that because I did that, it would raise the bar for other school administrators to do the same thing. I never thought that would be a repercussion. I was surprised that some people were worried that they would be on-call 24 hours. I just felt that was my responsibility.Q. How will you foster the same outside-the-box thinking in the district as a whole when you are superintendent?A. I want to create an environment where principals can create ideas like that and share them. A lot of my thinking from now on as superintendent will be not what's happening next year, but what's happening five years from now.Q. How will you maintain the close relationships with staff and students you have built as principal of Jacobs?A. Currently, there are several people that evaluate the principals. As the leader of the school district, that is a critical group to me. I will be the person that interviews all of the 26 building principals. In order for me to do that effectively, I have to be in the buildings. I want to have an actual responsibility while I'm (visiting schools) and not just walk around the building looking for maintenance issues and shaking hands and glad-handing. You have to be the most visible person in the community.Q. Are there any changes in store for the central administration?A. There will be a reorganization. I think people are pretty nervous about that, but it's going to be pretty thoughtful. There could be cuts, there could be movement from one area to another. Change is good if it's done for the right reasons to benefit students and/or parents.Q. Describe your vision for the district.A. We have a strategic plan that's a great working document, but it's not being used. There's a great deal of time, of people's knowledge in that plan, and I want to look at those targets (in the strategic plan). (I want to look at creating a new) revenue stream by potential sponsorships. If there's really good policy designed around our sponsorships, it's an incredible amount of additional revenue for our school buildings.Q. Do you feel minorities in the district are well-served?A. We have never been able to look at the data for individual students and have the teacher make instructional decisions based on individual data. We're able to now prescribe our curriculum based on the individual needs of our students. That used to be a buzzword before - 'I'm going to individualize my instruction' - but now we have the means to do that.Q. What will be your greatest challenge as superintendent?A. I really need to get more balance in my life when it comes to not working all the time. Working every day can't be healthy. You need to get away and come back fresh. I tend to be a bit of a micromanager because I like things done a certain way. As my responsibility has grown, I really need to do a better job of micromanaging less and empowering people. (In addressing an issue), it really should start with the person that's closest to the problem.Q. What programs would you implement your first day as superintendent?A. I would really like to incorporate the SAM program with the 26 building principals. (Note: The SAM program allows principals to compare how much time they spend doing administrative tasks to time spent supervising instruction.) For me to make decisions about building leadership, it's going to be important for me to understand how those building leaders are using their time. There's going to be some pretty clear targets about how much time building principals are spending on instruction.Q. Do you support merit pay, the idea of tying teacher compensation to measurable results?A. I really want to know more about merit pay. There is a misconception about merit pay where people think it's automatically not going to work. Every teacher should be able to look at the kids they have at the very beginning in their classroom, assess their learning and then set goals for where those kids should end their school year. That's what we need to do first before we get into the pay piece.Q. Given the district's budget difficulties, is a referendum on the horizon?A. I don't think that you can ever rule that out ... but I think that you have to demonstrate to the community that you are exhausting all of your resources in securing additional funds and looking at programs. I don't see that in the near future. A referendum would certainly be a last resort. We have a lot of work to do before that question even comes into play.