Sean C. Morgan
School District 55’s new superintendent, Don Schrader, went to work on Tuesday last week.
“The transition has been really smooth,” Schrader said. “The people have been so welcoming.”
Schrader, 49, got his feet wet a week earlier, going in to get organized, visit around the district, talk to people and work with the School Board officers to set the agenda for the July meeting.
Schrader met with the maintenance superintendent and toured some of the district’s buildings.
“The buildings are in really good shape, and I think we have a good maintenance crew,” Schrader said. Facilities are in “top shape” compared to other school districts, he added. Maintenance employees are licensed plumbers and electricians, which is a sharp contrast from Glide, where he was superintendent.
In Glide, the district would have to hire contractors from the Medford area, he said, while the maintenance workers here are building and installing a boiler.
Schrader has already dealt with revenue reductions that districts around the entire state are facing, and he’ll face the same challenges here. Sweet Home’s budget was cut by some $1.7 million going into the next school year.
“I’ve always been an optimist,” Schrader said. “It’s been hard the past couple of years.”
Schools have been scrambling and cutting, but the state comes up with money, he said. That hasn’t happened yet this time around, although the legislature passed a bill that will provide $25 million statewide, which is $30,000 to $40,000 for Sweet Home.
“They have four furlough days next year, which is tough for staff,” he said, but it’s not like the sky is falling. “That’s why I can continue to be optimistic.”
Schrader plans to keep in touch with the community and has already set up a superintendent’s blog on the district’s website, sweethome.k12.or.us. He will bring up different topics, and people are welcome to email comments to him.
His first post discusses his first day in the office and what he plans to do in the superintendent’s blog: “The move from Glide to Sweet Home has been a wonderful change. I know it’s only the third day, but I can tell this is a great place to work. My office, for example, is quite a bit larger than the 10-by-10 space I held in Glide and, to my surprise, the office is even ventilated with air. Recently, I attended a gathering of all the Sweet Home administrators. I was fortunate enough to be invited to a little BBQ going away party for Dr. Larry Horton. What a wonderful group of educators! I am looking forward with intense anticipation to start working with this knowledgeable, dedicated and kid centered team. The Sweet Home students are certainly in good hands for sure.”
As he takes his new post, he recognizes that the teachers and administrators are all moving in a forward direction, he said. As he leaves Glide and when he leaves Sweet Home someday in the future like his retired predecessor Larry Horton, “I want people to know that we kept it going, and we didn’t stop.”
He loves talking about instruction and educational practices, Schrader said. “I want to be remembered as an instructional leader and kid-centered – that everything I did was to make kids successful.”
When he or the board makes a decision, and someone asks him why, he said, the reason will be, “it’s because we think it’s best for the students.”
“I have some ideas to make classroom instruction better,” Schrader said, and he is looking forward to working with administrators and teachers on them.
He doesn’t plan to spend much time in the office, he said. He would rather spend time at the schools.
Schrader has moved to Sweet Home with his wife, Natalie. They have two grown children and three grandchildren.
Schrader said he “plays at golf,” and he enjoys fly fishing.
He has an “Empire Strikes Back” poster on his wall, and a “Return of the Jedi” lunch box on a shelf with a couple of other lunch boxes. He said he may have watched too many movies and too much TV as a kid, joking he learned about opera from Bugs Bunny.
He started collecting movie posters when he and his wife subscribed to Murphy’s Express, a service like Netflix, except with VHS video cassettes. Along with the movies, the service delivered movie posters.
Schrader is a Duck, he said, but he wore orange last week to support the Giants. He grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and is a strong Giants fan.