Texas educator is District 59’s new superintendent
Elk Grove Township Elementary District 59’s new superintendent comes to the Northwest suburbs from Texas with stops in New York City and Los Angeles along the way during a 25-year career teaching and overseeing public and charter schools.
Brett Gallini takes the helm of the Elk Grove Village-based pre-K-8 district on July 1, following the school board’s approval of a three-year contract this week.
He will succeed Terri Bresnahan, whose five-year tenure in the district got off to a rocky start with a proposed equity plan that would have reconfigured elementary schools into grade-level centers, redistricted some areas, and repurposed the year-round Ridge Family Center for Learning into a preschool.
The agreement awards Gallini a base salary of $240,000, guarantees of 2.5% raises in years two and three, 20 vacation and 15 sick days a year, a $700 monthly automobile allowance, and a $75 monthly mobile phone stipend.
He must “maintain residency in sufficient proximity to the school district,” according to the contract, but Gallini says he’s planning to move within district boundaries and enroll his two sons, ages 6 and 3, in the school system. His contract allows for up to $10,000 in reimbursable moving expenses.
“A student is in first grade once, and we’ve gotta get it right the very first time. I’m committed to that,” Gallini said.
Gallini is a senior executive director in the Houston Independent School District, where he helps manage 45 schools. He previously was an executive director overseeing elementary schools in one of the district’s feeder patterns, and started in the district in 2022 as a principal. He arrived in Texas in 2019 to become managing director for curriculum and instruction at Uplift Education, a charter school network in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, according to his LinkedIn profile.
In 2012, Gallini became executive director of Neighborhood Charter Schools in New York City after five years as a magnet school principal for New York City Public Schools and three years as a teacher and literacy coach. He started his career in 1999 teaching fifth grade in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Gallini was one of six candidates who interviewed behind closed doors with the school board last month. More than 50 applied for the job.
The board went through resumes and conducted interviews during five special executive session meetings in November and December.
Board President TR Johnson said they “stayed true” to the superintendent leadership profile developed through search firm BWP & Associates’ surveys and listening sessions of stakeholders.
“We always looked back at what did the community want, what did the leadership teams want, what did the teachers want, and we always looked back to that leadership profile to make sure we were finding somebody who matched that,” Johnson said.