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How do you know you are making a difference? Unlike my previous jobs in corporate America where culture and pace were relatively predictable, my days at Boston Public Schools can follow a seemingly random fluctuation between the highest highs and the lowest lows. In my first year, I found myself wondering: was I making a difference or was I just riding a roller coaster?
The answer came last June when I got a telephone call from a newly hired preschool teacher. I manage the roll-out of Boston's new early education programs and this teacher had somehow found my name after being bounced around between no less than ten people. She had been told that the preschool teacher training was being held the week of August 17th. She was panicked because she was getting married on August 15th and she was hoping to be on her honeymoon that week. She was thrilled to be joining the school, was excited about her new job, but everyone else had told her she had to skip her honeymoon and attend the five days of training. In a bureaucracy, the fastest thing you learn is that it is always easier to say no than to say yes. That drives me nuts. So as this wonderful teacher, whom the principal wanted to hire, was wavering between turning down the job or skipping her honeymoon, I decided to say yes. I told her that five days of training were not going to be the deciding factor in her teaching career and that a happy marriage would be her foundation for what was going to be a challenging first year of a new program. A few days later, I was sitting at my desk when a woman came into my office. She asked if she could give me a hug. I was clearly taken aback and she smiled, identified herself as the teacher on the phone, and said that she was so thankful to know she had an ally at central office. I asked her what had brought her to the central office. She said: "You." She had come all the way downtown to say thank you to my face and give me a hug. It is so much easier to say yes. 
Meet the Broad Superintendents Academy Class of 2008 Ten prominent leaders nationwide, including education executives, high-ranking military officials, and civic leaders have been selected to participate in the 2008 Broad Superintendents Academy. Participants currently holding positions as high-level education executives are leading school districts in the following cities: Chino, CA, Baton Rouge, LA, Jackson, MI, New York, NY, Providence, RI, Pueblo, CO, Saint Paul, MN, and Washington, D.C. These current and future education leaders bring diverse professional backgrounds to the Academy, from leading high school reform to commanding U.S. Air Force squadrons, but they share a common focus on making dramatic improvements for students in our nation's urban schools. They also share a common interest in working with Broad Residents in their districts. Many Residency supervisors are participants or graduates of the Academy program, and together they are making a difference in the lives of the children they serve. The Broad Center would like to congratulate and wish The Broad Superintendents Academy Class of 2008 the best of luck as they work towards making improvements in education reform. 
Congratulations to Newly Appointed Broad Superintendent Fellows  The Broad Center would like to congratulate Tom Brady, Angela Bass and Paul Gill for the new roles they have been appointed to and wishes them the best of luck in their endeavors. On March 25, 2008, Mayor David N. Cicilline announced the hiring of Thomas M. Brady as the new Superintendent for Providence Public Schools. Previously, Colonel Brady served as Interim Chief Executive Officer for The School District of Philadelphia, the eighth largest school system in the country. Prior to that, Colonel Brady served as the Chief Operating Officer for the District of Columbia Public Schools where he worked with Broad Resident Recy Dunn. In addition, Colonel Brady served as Chief Operating Officer for the Fairfax County Public Schools, the 12th largest school district in the United States. Colonel Brady began his career in education in 1999 as the Assistant Superintendent for the Department of Facilities Services. Colonel Brady is a retired U.S. Army officer whose last assignment in his 25-year Army career was as Commander of Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Colonel Brady graduated from The Broad Superintendents Academy in 2004.  On February 25, 2008, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced his education leadership team, appointing veteran school reformer Angela Bass as the Superintendent of Instruction for The Partnership Schools. Angela brings to The Partnership 30 years of experience as an educator and reform agent within the San Diego Unified School District. She served as Executive Director of Baldridge Education Criteria for Performance Excellence in the Office of the Superintendent, an elementary school teacher, Race/Human Relations Coordinator for more than 75 school districts, Vice Principal at a large, urban and diverse elementary school, Principal at two different campuses and Mentor Principal to aspiring educational leaders. Angela graduated from The Broad Superintendents Academy in 2005.  On February 27, 2008, Paul Gill was appointed as the new Chief Operations Officer for Pittsburgh Public Schools. A former Colonel in the United States Air Force and Regional Vice President for a publicly traded management company, Paul has a proven record when it comes to quickly assessing and turning around organizations to be more effective, customer-friendly and profitable. Paul graduated from The Broad Superintendents Academy in 2007. As Chief Operations Officer, Paul will report directly to Superintendent Mark Roosevelt. Currently, the District's Chief Operations Officer oversees the following areas: Facilities, Plant Operations, Pupil Transportation, Food Service, and School Police.
A Day in the Life of a Broad Resident: James Masias   What is the day-to-day experience of a Broad Resident like? One of our current Broad Residents, James Masias, who is in his second year of the Residency, tells you in his own words. Additional journal entries can be found on The Broad Residency website James Masias's Journal #2 I decided to make the decision to move back to Denver, Colorado from San Diego, California. I learned a great deal about K-12 education while working at San Diego Unified, but was offered to join the team at Denver Public Schools (DPS) as the Director of Finance reporting to the Chief Financial Officer. Wednesday, January 9, 2008 8:00 - 8:30 AM Meeting to determine incremental financial need to provide full-time benefits to part-time bus drivers I need to create a financial model that will calculate the costs associated with providing full-time health care benefits to part-time bus drivers, and determine how much it will cost the district. 8:30 - 9:00 AM One-on-one time with the CFO 9:00 - 10:00 AM Participate in Share Point class I am trying to make it easier for the purchasing department to share files, make announcements and manage projects. I decided to have everyone in purchasing trained in Microsoft Share Point - a tool designed much like an intranet site, which can be used to communicate, share files, make announcements, create and deliver surveys, etc. This is turning out to be more difficult than planned! 10:00 - 11:00 AM Meet with Department of Technology CIO to discuss software license agreement and implementation effort This meeting is designed to develop a plan to purchase a software license, establish a maintenance agreement, and create an implementation effort for the next meeting with the software vendor. 11:00 - 11:30 AM Meeting with the Director of Purchasing At DPS, the Director of Purchasing reports to me, so every week we have a meeting to make sure all is on track, check how the team is functioning, and conduct planning discussions to move from a purchasing department to a Strategic Sourcing Department. 11:30 - 12:00 PM Read through "best practice" material for increasing Purchase Card spending I am trying to increase our P-Card purchases to over $20M; if I can make this happen we will get back $200,000 in rebate monies from our bank. 12:00 - 1:00 PM Have lunch and read through Lawson project plan 1:00 - 2:00 PM Participate and manage conference call with United Missouri Bank United Missouri is the bank that manages the district's Purchasing Card program. Among the questions asked were: How do we increase the amount of spending? How do we improve the monthly account reconciliation? How much more rebate can we receive back from the bank? 2:00 - 3:00 PM COO metrics presentation As we move toward our Performance Management initiative this is one of the preliminary steps in developing the items we will measure by department. 3:00 - 4:00 PM New Schools budget review and analysis This is my first meeting with the New Schools team, so we are going to review their proposed budget in detail, line by line. 4:00 - 5:00 PM Capital reserve fund review, analysis and forecast One of my other duties is to manage the money in the District's Capital Reserve fund. I need to review current and planned spending, and build a forecast so that every month I will know how close we are to the budget. 6:00 PM Time to head for home so I can take my son to basketball practice.
The Broad Residency
The Broad Residency plans to attend The Consortium's upcoming 42nd Annual Orientation Program & Career Forum (OP) as an exhibitor at the Career Forum. If you are planning to attend, please stop by our booth at the Career Forum to learn more about The Broad Residency. The Consortium
The Broad Center The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems is a non-profit organization that seeks to raise student achievement by recruiting, training and supporting executive leadership talent from across America to become the next generation of urban school district leaders. Established in 2001 and funded by The Broad Foundation, The Broad Center identifies talented leaders from education, business, the military, non-profit organizations and government backgrounds who have the passion, knowledge and skills to take on executive leadership roles in urban education. The Broad Center operates both The Broad Residency and The Broad Superintendents Academy, a ten-month executive management program to train working CEOs and other top executives to lead urban public school systems. For more information about The Broad Center, go to www.broadcenter.org. The Broad Foundation The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation is a national venture philanthropy established by entrepreneur and philanthropist Eli Broad to advance entrepreneurship for the public good in education, science and the arts. The Broad Foundation's education work is focused on dramatically improving urban K-12 public education through better governance, management, labor relations and competition. The Broad Foundation's Internet address is www.broadfoundation.org.
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I would find a way to have the trainer do a make up session for her later in August and I could arrange for her to have extra time with her mentor teacher in the first month of school. She was effusive in her thank yous, we talked about some details, and I got off the phone.
