[B]URLINGTON – New Burlington schools superintendent Yaw Obeng, who decamped from a Canadian district with 27 schools to oversee 11 here, has his sights set on improving educational equity and stabilizing the district’s finances.
“Building on a strong foundation, Burlington School District will serve as a model for the state, by increasing student achievement and narrowing the achievement gap through 21st-century classrooms,” he said at a news conference Thursday.
Announcing his 100-day leadership plan, Obeng, 45, outlined his organizational strategy for the turbulent district while speaking in a classroom at the district’s offices on Colchester Avenue. He said principals would lead the district in “a culturally competent way that demonstrates equity and inclusion,” he said.
“Staff learning will be valued, improvement will be data-informed,” he said, and under his leadership, “stakeholders will feel a sense of ownership and connectedness to their schools.”
After a rocky start, in which the city spent $16,000 more than the original $40,000 allocated for his recruitment and hiring due to immigration barriers, Obeng finally stepped into on Aug. 31.
Meanwhile, the father of two teenagers, 15 and 16, said his family is still living in hotels, and deciding what community to settle in to provide the least conflict for his children in their academic life.
Obeng is also teaching a class as an adjunct at the University of Vermont, part of a workaround that allowed him to obtain a visa. He said he’s ready to put his best foot forward, and said it was his “core beliefs” or “things that drive me” in developing his 100-day plan.
Those beliefs, as well as the full plan, are available at the district’s website, but among those he noted:
• All students can and will learn in an equitable and inclusive environment.
• Setting high expectations with innovative resource-utilizations eliminating achievement gaps.
• All students are highly effective, engaging instructional strategies and staff.
• Staff learning and capacity building is necessary for increased students success.
• Transparency and openness serve as the basis for communication.
• Engaged parents, caregivers, and supportive community serve as the cornerstone for the education of our students.
• Effective resource management aligned with student achievements, results in high-performing organizations.
Of 14 points he hopes to accomplish, delving into the budget comes 12th on the list – but involves both internal and external audits, he said.
Higher on his list: Developing strong relationships and school board support, and strategizing around communications. Five of his overall points touched upon communication: first, between himself and the school board, as well as between himself and internal staff and departments.
He also plans to do “learning tours” he said, so he can get to know each of the schools in the district well – carrying over a practice he kept in his previous district of Halton School District, which had 61,000 students in total. (Burlington’s is just 6 percent of that, with 4,000 students in Pre-K through 12th grade.)
Obeng, who will earn $153,000 a year – more than any previous superintendent – is the district’s first black superintendent.
When asked how he intended to deal with the diverse backgrounds of students in Burlington, he cited work he did in Canada, where he first served as a principal then an administrator in the Toronto school district – the fourth largest in North America, he said.
“Having that experience has given me a range of experiences in working with refugee communities and in working with first immigrants,” he said.
In Halton, a Toronto suburb where “the demographics were sort of mono-ethnic” a sudden 10-percent population rise while he was a superintendent there, rocked the community.
“I know the data showed we had a 756-percent boom in visible minorities,” in the school district, he said.
One of the things he did was set up a successful English language learners reception center, a model he said could work here – where students speak 56 different languages at home and come from 26 countries.
If data from Ontario is any indication, he said, “working with the ELL students over five years, when given the resources, they achieved above the normal grouping. So given the right resources and the right support, they can achieve,” he said.
“I’m a product of that,” he added.
As to whether he knew when the audits on the budget might be available and when he could speak to them, Obeng said, “yep,” he knew the when.
“I’ve got a 100 days,” he said. “So after 100 days I think I’ll have a lot of information to start working with the board.”
