The sole finalist for RE-1 Valley School District interim superintendent, Dr. Martin Foster, was interviewed for the position by the school board at a regular meeting Monday.
Dr. Foster retired in 2018 after 40 years in education, including 20 years as superintendent. Most recently he spent 15 years as superintendent of RE-5J Johnstown and Milliken School District. Prior to that, he spent 17 years in RE-1 Valley, serving six years as middle school principal, three years as high school principal, three years as assistant superintendent and five years as superintendent from 1998 to 2003.
He began his education career as a special education teacher, following in the footsteps of his mother who was also a teacher while his father farmed.
“I’ve had that love for education and for kids all my life and it’s just been a real honor for me to have had the opportunities that I’ve had in education,” Dr. Foster said.
He shared that he has a real fondness for RE-1 community because his children grew up here and attended school here from kindergarten through two years at Northeastern Junior College. When the interim superintendent position in RE-1 became open, Randy Zila, of McPherson and Jacobson, the firm assisting the district with its superintendent search, approached him and asked if he would be interested and it caught his eye. While he has been enjoying retirement, he was itching to get back into the education field and is excited to be back doing what he loves.
Asked about establishing an effective budget with limited resources, Dr. Foster pointed out that’s something every district struggles with even faster growing districts, “they never had enough funding to do everything they’d like to do,” he said. He shared during the five years he was superintendent in RE-1, the district was losing between 80 to 100 students a year, so he had to look at things differently in trying to put together a budget and maintain what the district had with programs.
“I always prioritize when I look at things, first and foremost to have a quality school district you have to have quality teachers and quality principals and to maintain them you have to treat them fairly. Nobody in education is here to get rich, it’s just not going to happen, but you’re here because it’s the best job in the world if you love kids, it absolutely is and as a teacher or as an administrator or principal, that’s the first and foremost to try above everything else to keep the people that you have and allow them to be paid a fair wage,” Dr. Foster said.
After that, he believes there needs to be communication with principals, staff, the school board and the community about everyone’s highest priorities and then the district can try to maintain those.
He was also asked about decreased community trust in board decisions and superintendent leadership and what his role is in regaining parent and community trust in district actions. Dr. Foster said visibility is a must; the superintendent needs to be seen a lot, not only in the schools and at school activities but in the community as well.
“You need to as a superintendent be cognizant of what your community is, not only what it is, but what it’s expectations are. You need to go out, you need to meet the people,” he told the board, adding that the sense of trust will have to come from “the proof is in the pudding, you say something you mean it and you do it and people can see that you’ve actually done that.”
He believes it’s important that people know the superintendent is there and they are welcome to come up and talk to them and share what’s on their mind.
Asked about his ideas to reverse the declining enrollment in the district and to market and attract students, Dr. Foster said once he gets here and gets grounded that’s one of the first things he would like to do, is see what’s going on and find out why people are living in the community and not sending their children to school in RE-1.
“That’s something that we all should be first of all aware of and then really work on ways of trying to convince these people if you live here your kids ought to go to school here and listen to them and find out why would that be (that they don’t). Again, the programs that you have the more you can sell that, the more that they’re visible, the more that you can share with your community about what your programs are, from what your test scores are, who your teachers are, look at what your curriculum is offering at each one of your schools, that stuff is very, very important to people, parents in particular,” he said.
The board is expected to finalize the interim superintendent selection at a special meeting on Tuesday, June 28. They were unable to take action at Monday’s meeting because under Colorado law, school boards can’t take any final action with respect to negotiations for contracts until 14 days after finalists for the position are announced.
While Dr. Foster isn’t expected to officially start in the position until July 1, the board did approve hiring him to serve as administrative consultant to RE-1 beginning as soon as it becomes feasible if the district’s attorney approves and there are no conflicting rules, regulations or laws. The idea is to allow him some time to get background on things going on in the district before he officially starts on July 1.
Board president Steve Shinn advised that he tried to contact the district’s attorney, Adele Reester with Lyons Gaddis, to see whether hiring Dr. Foster as a consultant would be doable, however she was out of the office on vacation last week and their office was closed Monday due to the Juneteenth holiday, so he had not yet gotten a response.
Should it be allowable, Dr. Foster could start as a consultant prior to next week’s action.
