New Kent schools chief on the job: labor negotiations to come

In his first few weeks on the job, new Kent School District Superintendent Edward Lee Vargas made it a point to tour all of the district’s 40 schools, meeting the principals, visiting classrooms and even jumping in to help students with their homework.

“Up until the last day of school, I was in schools all day,” Vargas said this past week from his new office. “It was important to get out and have that personal touch with each school.”

Vargas, who officially took over for the retired Barbara Grohe on July 1, said his visits helped “jump start my transition” and gave him the opportunity to “feel the pulse” of his new district.

He also had the chance to meet staff, question students and get a sense of the scale and scope of the Kent School district, which stretches across three cities. It also gave him a better understanding of what staff and students think about the district.

“I would be asking questions about how things were going,” he said, adding, “we’ve got some tremendous schools out there.”

The school visits, some of which were accompanied by a member of the school board, some solo, were also an opportunity for Vargas to talk to his new staff unfiltered and introduce himself to the teachers and principals he’ll be leading for the foreseeable future.

“My whole transition is about listening and learning,” he said.

Vargas, 56, was hired earlier this year after a nationwide search to find a replacement for Grohe, who led Kent for 10 years before retiring. A University of Washington grad and former California superintendent of the year, Vargas came to Kent by way of the Stupski Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to social justice for children, where he was the superintendent in residence.

He likes what he sees in Kent.

“I know we have many challenges,” he said. “But it’s a great opportunity to serve a wonderful district.”

At every school, Vargas said he felt welcomed by the teachers and the students and is enjoying getting started as the new superintendent.

The key, he said, will be building on the district’s strengths, which he said not only include the staff and school board, but parental involvement and the local business community.

“Our people are our No. 1 strength,” he said. “You leave inspired.”

But the district’s growing diversity is not the only challenge facing the new superintendent in his first year. The district is grappling with a budget crunch brought on by an economic recession affecting not just Kent, but the state and nation.

At the same time, however, another challenge facing the district is the current contract negotiations with the Kent Education Association, the union that represents teachers in the district.

Vargas said it is important to collaborate with the union and be “open, honest and respectful” with them. He said it was important to make sure teacher salaries are competitive – the union’s biggest complaint – with competing districts, but that it was also important to do it in a fiscally responsible way with a focus on the students and instruction.

“That’s why we’re here,” he said, adding that the district and the union need to focus on the commonalities of what they are both hoping to accomplish.

“We all want our kids to do better and our employees to be successful,” he said.

KEA President Lisa Brackin-Johnson said she has not had a chance to really get to know the new superintendent yet, having only met with him once for 45 minutes back in April. However, Brackin-Johnson said KEA members who met Vargas during his school visits had a generally favorable impression.

Brackin-Johnson said there has not been a change in the district bargaining positions in the two sessions conducted since Vargas came on board, though the union hopes fresh eyes will help see a quick resolution.

“We’re hopeful he will bring some new perspective,” she said. “We look forward to working with him in the future.”

So what will Vargas’s district look like?

Vargas laid out a series of 5 “R’s” on which he would be focused as superintendent. At the top of his list was Rigor, making sure expectations and standards within the district were as high as they could be.

Next, he cited Relevance, making sure that what they are teaching is actually relevant to the students lives as well as getting the students on to college or a career.

The superintendent also said Respect was important and that teachers and staff need to model the behaviors they want to see in the students, which means treating everybody with respect.

Vargas also said the district had to stay focused on results, making sure that all subgroups within the district’s demographics have an opportunity to succeed and that the “achievement gap” between some of the groups is closed.

Finally, the super said it was important to take Responsibility for the district and for staff to be held accountable to the community.

Vargas said he is a proponent of a “systems approach,” in which everything is linked and everyone must be working together to accomplish the same goals.

“We want to make sure not some or most, but all of our kids are meeting those standards,” he said.

After touring the schools over the past month, Vargas said he promised each school that he would be back, something he is taking to heart.

So farm the new superintendent has promised three teachers he would take a day as a substitute in their classroom to allow the teachers to observe a fellow teacher in another building.

He also plans to make sure each member of the executive cabinet finds their way into a classroom situation next year as well. It will remind him, and his staff, to remain focused on the students, he said, as well as the day-to-day lives of the teachers who do the heavy lifting every day for Kent schools.

“I think it’s important for us to remind ourselves where we came from and how tough our teachers work,” he said. “It’s a good reminder of why we’re here.”

Brackin-Johnson was pleased to hear of the super’s plans and and said it would be good for members of the administration to see exactly how their decision impact the classroom every day.

“That’s great,” she said. “We look forward to him being in the classroom.”