"Thank you very much for coming. I’ll just make a few comments if you don’t mind. I really appreciate the fact that despite the weather that we’re having that you would make the effort to come in and say hello. That means a great deal to not only myself but my family. My wife and my children were around here, but I don’t see them now. Jake is here. He’s our oldest son. He’s going into 7th grade. We have a daughter, Ellie, who’s going into 5th, and our son, Luke, who’s going into the 2nd grade."
"A big reason why Valparaiso for us was a great fit was because of the quality of the community, and the ability to raise our family here. We’ve heard only great things about the community and feel very fortunate to come here and be the superintendent here. And as a superintendent, it’s exciting as well, because we have a high quality school system. It is very reputable around the whole state of Indiana. I’ve had some colleges calling me from all over the state who I’m familiar with. They very much know the reputation of this school system and I’ve got to tell you that, as great as this school system is, it will be my job to take us to another level-- to get us better."
"We’re doing great things for kids. Don’t get me wrong in any way, but there are also things that we need to keep doing to get better, because we not only have to have our kids compete against other students in this region, but we also need to have our students compete against students from all over the world. Because that’s the world that we live in. So, that’s our job: when people graduate from Valparaiso that they can go out and they can be highly competitive in whatever environment they choose to pursue. And, I’m confident that the people who are here in place, that there’s no doubt that we can do it. "
"It won’t always be easy, and it won’t always be fun, but I guarantee that we’re going to do it in a collaborative manner. We’re going to do it, we’re going to do it with accountability, and we’re going to measure it and make sure it’s effective. If it’s not effective, we’re going to go back to the drawing table, we’re going to retool it and go back again."
"I’ve never been a person to rest on my laurels, I don’t even know what that’s like. I’ve always been a person to try to move forward and drive things forward, but I understand proper pace is important. You just can’t force change too quickly, because you then risk alienating others. But we do have to push people forward, and it’s for the betterment of our students. That’s why we’re here. So, hopefully, that gives you a little bit of an idea of who I am."
"Karla is my wife. She’s the rock of the family. She is the reason why I have been as successful as I have been. We’re honored and fortunate to have 3 great kids. 99.96% of the time I feel that way, but yeah know, we are lucky. And, I look forward to meeting all of you and working with you. So, please feel free to come up and say ‘Hello’ and thanks again for taking the time to come out. It means a lot to us."
[Question from audience] Could you explain where you worked before as a superintendent?
I worked for Peru Community Schools in Miami County. It’s near Kokomo. 2300 students. I started there 3 years ago and took on a school system that had a good foundation, but we needed to change. And, I’m glad to say that with the help of a lot of people from our community and school system made some significant change in the 3 years I was there, immeasurable change. And, we have a very poor economic environment there. But, our students have continued to achieve emphasis and focus. We’re still getting them to achieve at high levels despite the economic condition. I’m a big believer in that I don’t care what the background is of a student, it’s our job to take every single one and make them better. We’re going to take them where they are, and we’re going to make them better every year. It’s all of our responsibility to make sure that happens. And, it’s not easy and it’s not fun, but we will do that.
Prior to that, I was at East Allen County Schools, I was an English teacher at the high school level, journalism, newspaper. I was a guidance counselor; that’s my master’s degree. And, then became an assistant principal, a principal for 5 years at New Haven High School and then assistant superintendent for 2 years. East Allen, probably one of the most adverse school systems in the state, you had every possible type of student. You had students from farming communities, you had students from small town America. We had students from inner city Fort Wayne that all fed into our school corporation. That exposure to those students from all different walks of life was, to me, invaluable. And, is the reason now why I have the philosophy I do now about kids.
[Question from audience] One of the things that interests me greatly is what inspires a person to ascend from that background: from instructor to principal to top administrator. Your inspiration, not withstanding, you’ve already explained that every child in your system is generally regarded with a degree of emphasis so in addition to whatever additional inspiration that you can comment on there and the effect of making an effect on each child’s life? What higher or greater indications of your academic or educational philosophy might you share with us?
Sure, that’s a very good question. And, I’ll just tell you this. I started to feel that I was making a difference when I first got into education. And, I felt that I could make a difference inside my classroom. And, I felt it every day. And, all of a sudden, I became a guidance counselor. And all of a sudden, I had several hundred students that I could make a difference with. And then I was asked to step into administration. And all of a sudden, the pool became greater, and I was asked to be even more influential with a greater group of people.
So, to me, to be a superintendent is probably the greatest thing I could ever do to try to make a difference in the lives of as many young people as I can. I believe education is the lifeblood of a community. I believe we should be the leader in the community. Education. Because we are the ones that have the responsibility to raise our kids to a level where they can be successful contributors to our community. And to me, there is no greater effort than that. So, I believe you have to partner with parents, you have to partner with your business community, you have to partner with governmental leaders, you have to partner with your higher education community. It all together, if you can work collaboratively, if you can get everyone on the same page, and I’ve done that in 2 different communities. If you can get them on the same page, there’s no stopping us.
[Question from audience] So, you’re an English teacher. What’s your view on the arts?
Well, I will tell you this. We love every aspect of school. We love the arts, whether that’s the fine arts, whether it be the visual arts. I believe that we want our children to be successful in whatever area that they’re interested in. For example, my wife can tell you that I’m pretty competitive. And, I don’t care whether we are trying to produce works of art for a competition, whether we’re trying to put a show choir together that will step out for competition, whether we’re putting on a drama performance for the community or whether we’re putting a football team on the field to compete on a Friday night. I want to win. I want to do well. I want our students to well represent themselves, I want them to well represent the community. And, to me, you’re not a solid school system unless you have that balance.
The academics have to come first, first and foremost. But students, especially as they get to higher levels of education, they start to figure out who they are. The reason that they stay in school is that they have a certain love for something. And whether that is ‘I love art’ or ‘I love band‘, ‘I love choir’, ‘I love sports’. Sometimes, it’s those activities that on those tough days when that kid doesn’t feel like going to school, but they know if they don’t go to school, they can’t compete that evening in a show choir performance, it will get them to school. That show choir keeps them going when the going gets tough. And so, it’s important that we have an even emphasis on all these areas.
Q: You spoke about taking children where they’re at and moving them forward. In the elementary level, how do you envision a gifted and talented program for the children who are of a high ability level. Valpo used to have a specific program but they no longer do, so what is your vision for how to take those children where they’re at and push them.
It’s the same thing, because of the accountability movement in this country we’ve had to emphasize taking those children who are really at risk because we need to get them to meet minimum efficiencies in order to move on, so education has been forced to put an emphasis on those students and that’s fine, but let me say two things: from a gifted and talented prospective, here’s how I feel I’m a little worried about gifted and talented programs that have a tendency to focus only on getting kids more work to do. Because youre really smart, read fifty pages instead of thirty pages.
Because you’re so smart, do 100 math problems instead of 50 math problems. That’s not a gifted and talented program, if you’re going to truly enrich kids, you have to take them where they are and you’ve got to put them in more project based, hands on, enriching experiences. That’s my opinion, I don’t think gifted and talented program, in general are quite where they need to be yet. So that’s an area of focus but, another things I must say, because usually the best students you have in a school corporation, they’re going to achieve, despite you. no matter who you put, who the teacher is, no matter what the situation is, your best students are going to be successful regardless, and that’s true all over the country.
Your lowest performing kids will get the attention they need, because you must give them the attention because you have to meet these minimum proficiencies. I think that the area that I am very concerned about is the middle group. This group of about 50% of our students, they come to school everyday, they’re responsible kids, they don’t get into any trouble, but they have a tendency to be ignored. No one is saying “you’re not gifted, you’re not at risk, you’re just doing fine so keep doing it. And I think in education, that’s a problem. I think that one of the concepts that I brought to the table, and I learned it many years ago, was of course called a career initiative.
What it does is it makes education more relevant for all kids. So that student that wants to hide over in the back of the room, you put him in an environment where you try to connect him to real life applications. If that child wants to be an engineer, then they identify that and then we start to nurture that and we put him in situations where they can end up, before the graduate, doing an internship with a company, as an engineer. Where I come from in Peru community schools, a smaller school corporation, when I came in we had 17 out of school interns. This year, just three years later, we had 76. And how the 76 happened was because you as your business community to step up and partner to offer internships. We release students from school for up to 2 periods. They can do it for a semester or a trimester or a year depending upon the circumstances, and then they are put in the job setting, not just watching, but doing.
So now that child can get that actual experience, prior to going to college. And then they can say ‘you know what, I wanted to be an architect, but once I worked in that architectural firm, I realized I didn’t like sitting behind the computer drawing. What I did like was going out and selling, marketing. So I’m going to go to Ball State instead of architectural school, which is one of the finest architectural school around, I’m going to go to ball state, and I’m going to major in marketing. So what have we just done for that child? That child is not going to go to college and waste time and a lot of money on something that they’ll find you later they didn’t want to do. So we need to expose our high school kids, all of them, 100% of them. I don’t care, what their ability, 100% have to be expose to that kind of a situation. They all are important, we’re going to say what career academy are you interested in, and we’re going to help nurture that for them so that they can get the actual relevant experience. That’s just a couple things.
Q: Do you have any plans to reach out to the Hispanic community?
I’m understanding of that and yes, absolutely. You know the one thing I was fortunate when I was in the East Allen county schools as I said, we had not only Hispanic population that was growing greatly but we had a large Burmese population, the largest population of Burmese in the world, the second largest population of Burmese in the world is in Fort Wayne, Indiana. So they were all leaving Burma and coming to Fort Wayne, Indiana. So all the sudden we had to take these students who could not speak any English at all, they were coming from an entirely different culture, we had to reach out to them and then we had to get to know them. We had to know their culture and we had to assimilate them into our school system. And that was not easy, but it was necessary.
So, as we look at the movement of population into Valparaiso, we need to understand the culture, we need to respect the culture, and we need to make sure if there are any achievement gaps, maybe because there is a language deficiency or what not, we need to bring those kids up to speed, and that’s going to require extra effort on our part to make that happen. But I’ve been through that experience and I’m confident that we can make that happen. Because we can’t afford to let those kids, we can’t let them down. They need to be able to achieve at as high level as possible, and we cant let theire language deficiency, perhaps if that is it, we cant let that drag them down. What we did was we had a young lady, I was a high school principal when this was happening, and luckily we had one Burmese student who was bilingual. She could speak enough English to where everyone who came into our office.
We had to call her out of class and say please come down and help us because none of the adults could speak any English, none of them. And so we basically had to have her come down and luckily she was a very bright young lady and she was able to help us and she was still able to graduate from high school and go to college. And she went to college locally and that helped us because we still needed her, so we had to take advantage of whatever situation we could find to help us make that work. And, I’ll tell you, that population was amazing. That population of people was amazing. Extremely bright. Extremely strong mathematicians, science people. They just had language issues, and we had to get after that. I hope that answers your question.
Q: As an education professional, I’m sure you’ve run into tough circumstances. What do you see in coming up against some of these current challenges in the Valpo school system?
Well, obviously, the financial picture that we’re trying to deal with is extreme. It may not be as extreme in certain areas, but where I’m currently superintendent, it’s hit us hard. We’re called a small town river community. In other words, the Wabash River runs through. We’re the county seat. And, we had a $90 million dollar loss in assessed valuation in 2009 alone just because of the economy. So, what’s really difficult is you’re trying to maintain high quality programs for kids and you’re trying to do it efficiently as you can with the dollars you have. But, it’s very frustrating, because there is no way to plan where this revenue is coming from.
So, the biggest challenge as far as I’m concerned is you never know where your revenue is. You can control your expenditure side, but you have no clue what revenue will have. When the governor came in with our school system, the impact was a $670,000 deduction in revenue as of January 1. We had no way to plan for that. So, immediately, we had to cut $2.2 million out of our 2010 budget. And, when we only had a budget of $15 million, and we had to do it now, it meant that we had to be really creative. How are you going to do that? The funding piece has been a real concern forever in terms of funding education.
But, I’m telling you that we’re at a point where it’s hurting kids. I understand we all have to have priorities in our lives, but to me, our kids are our top priority. And, they’re our key to economic development. So, to me, that’s greatest challenge that I see.
Q: Well, hopefully, there’s some way you can stimulate advocacy within the state government.
Well, I went down to the state house and met with our senator and our representative from our area and met right in the chambers and asked for them to meet with me and they met with me. And as a result of that, I know a lot of other superintendents did the same thing, but we ended up getting a favorable vote in terms of being able to use some capital projects’ funds transfer those into the general fund. So, it helped a little bit, and I’m willing to do what it takes.
Q: A number of communities have suggested increased property taxes for communities who care about their schools. Is that something you would be involved with and consider for Valparaiso?
I think, as a whole community, we can not afford to not look at those possibilities. If education is important to a community, which here it definitely is. Then, I think we have to be great stewards with the dollars that we have first and foremost. We have to look at what are those revenues and expenditures, and we have to be great stewards of those dollars. But, if we can not find a way to make ends meet, then if we have to go out in our community and ask for them to step it up. But when we do that, we have to justify to our community why. That’s important.
You have to be very transparent in terms of our financial picture. I’ve been in that circumstance, and I’ve had to share the budgetary situation that we’ve been in. And at first, the community has a hard time buying into it. First, they can’t see it. And, you have to keep selling and selling. Especially how school systems are funded, there are different modes of funding. So, sometimes people don’t understand how you can be cutting teachers out of a general fund and then have building coming out of another. You see, you really have to educate. If it takes that, if we have to go to some sort of referendum to make sure that we maintain the quality of programming we need, then sure it has to happen. But, to me, that’s not our first resort.
Q: There’s going to be so many issues flying at you. How will you relate to and interact with the community?
One thing that will happen, if it’s anything related to my past, I’m always out in the community. Our children participate in all kinds of events so it’s not unusual for me to have conversations with people at a ball game. Hopefully after the game, because I help coach. But, we will talk afterward and I have no problem. In terms of ability, I’m out in the community. I’m involved in various meetings, various community groups where they can also have a conversation. I’m a very visible person. I don’t spend a lot of time in my office. I spend a lot of time in the district, in buildings. I’m trying to get a good idea of what’s happening in classrooms. We do what we call audits of our teachers. What we do is that we go into every classroom and we watch teachers for 15 minutes. Now at the central office level, my level, and the assistant that I have. We have 143 teachers. We split that in half. So, it’s my job to go see 73 of those teachers and the other one go get the other 70. And, we have a sheet to track what they’re doing, what the teachers are doing, what the students are doing. We’re not evaluating those teachers, we’re evaluating our instructional practice I how engaged our kids are.
Q: Just tell me a little bit about the process [of selecting the new superintendent] and a little bit about the particular selection of Andrew Melin.
Mary Idstein: Well, it was a long process. We started with public input as to what characteristics that they wanted to see with the new superintendent. And we got a clear message. They wanted a charismatic leader, they wanted somebody who would be involved with the community, someone who would help all students. Not just the upper students, but to reach out to all students in the programming. So, we took all that input, and we used a university team that helps schools in Indiana search for new superintendents.
So, we announced the position. We posted it nationwide. We had 24 very highly qualified candidates that applied for it. The university team helped us screen, but we also went through every application. And, that was a very difficult decision. At that point, going through all those and decided which ones to interview and then proceed with. Because there were so many good candidates, it was difficult to do that part of it.
Then, we went through a series of interviews. At the end, we also involved the administrative central office team in the interviewing process. And, we allowed them to meet with the candidate by themselves, because we wanted the candidate to understand everything about Valparaiso schools. The good points, the bad points, what challenges there were, what opportunities there were. We didn’t want somebody coming in and later saying, “I want out.” So, we wanted them to really understand the school and also understand the school board. So, my directive to administration was ‘Tell them everything’. What it’s like, what the good points are.
After we did that with a few candidates, we then met with the administrative team and got their feedback, and we met as a board. And, it was unanimous. One candidate rose to the top and that part of the decision was very easy to see who would fit our school system the best and that was Dr. Andy Melin, who’s a real terrific candidate. Brigid McLinn, the other school board member and I, went down to Peru where he’s the current superintendent there, and we met his assistant superintendent, the high school principal, a teacher, the mayor of Peru; all people he had contacts with.
We met with two of his school board members, and the President of the school board, and they were all consistent in telling us how he has transformed their schools and how he’s made them go from good to great. We know we have an excellent school system now, but our vision is to make it even better. And, Andy understand that, and we’re going to move it forward so we’re very excited to have him join us.
Q: It must have been a luxury to have so many applicants, and it must have been even nicer to have one candidate that was just a great fit.
Idstein: And really, we credit Dr. Benway for giving us that excellent choice, because he has put our school system on the road to excellence, and Dr. Benway’s 20 years here has really helped Valparaiso Community Schools. We really couldn’t hire someone great unless we had someone great in our system already. So, we really recognize Dr. Benway’s great service that he has done for our schools.
Q: If you had to pick two or three characteristics that jumped out at you of the selection, what would you say?
Idstein: Number one, he [Andy Melin] cares about kids. He’s very driven and he’s very focused. He wants to accomplish the goals. He’ll collaborate with people to determine what the goals should be and how to go about it, but once the goals are set, he’s focused on that. And, I talked to his assistant superintendent who had said, “We worked on a lot of initiatives with the prior superintendent, but when Andy came at our school, he focused us on to really accomplish our goals.”
And, it’s that kind of drive, and it’s also data driven. He’s open to trying new things, but he’s going to look at the data and say ‘Are we getting better because we tried this?’, ‘Is the data supporting this initiative?’. And if it’s not, Andy is one to say ‘We got to try something else’. So, I think that’s what really made us make the decision.
Q: Anything in particular you’re looking forward to in your vision process?
Idstein: Next up is to set up the strategic plan. See what our priorities are. There’s a lot of things we want to do. We have to look at it strategically. What’s a priority, how do we focus on it, what can we get done. And, I’m going to be off the school board July 1st, so I wish the rest of the school board members a lot of luck with that, and I think we have a terrific foundation for them to work off of.
Q: The selection is obviously long and relatively involved process. What, for you personally, two or three qualities jumped out at you and said to you ‘This is the right guy’?
Brigid McLinn: I think when we first met him, one of the first statements that he made was that he felt privileged to be put in difficult situations. So right away, I thought ‘OK, here’s a guy that even if he’s in a difficult spot, he doesn’t see it as a problem. He sees it as an opportunity. And from there, everything he talked about from problem solving, he looks for win-win solutions. It just gave me this sense that he’s goal driven, he’ll do best for kids, he’s not going to take no for an answer, and he’s going to start moving.
Q: Yeah, the impression I got today was that he is goal oriented, very driven, a charming guy, and he is very focused.
McLinn: Yes, he definitely is. When we went down to Peru to interview some of their board members, staff members, citizens from the community, every single on them stated just that. That he has been wonderful for their community, he’s got the graduation rate up close to 20 percent.
Got involved with the community, enhanced education, made Peru a better community, because he never stopped working. They would say how they would get emails at 2 am, because he’s (Andy Melin) awake, he thinks of something, and right away, he’s still working.
Q: There’s some pretty significant challenges coming up these next few years. What makes you excited about having a leader like this go through the challenges you’ll be facing these next 5 years or so?
McLinn: Well, I think it’s with the development of the response to intervention program that is started, that he’s going to be able to enhance that. So, as he has been stating, he’s going to provide each student, as per our admissions statement now, to make sure that each student gets the best that they can.
So whether at the lower end or the higher end, or even that vital group in the middle, he’s going to do everything he can to meet their individual needs so that they are starting to grow at a rate that’s right for them and not so much every student determined and tested and set to the standard that the state does. But instead, it’s an individual growth model, and I’m excited to see him implement that.
Q: There were plenty of objectives that the school board wanted to snag in choosing the superintendent. What things were nearest and dearest to your heart in this whole process?
James Jorgensen: I assumed, and correctly it turns out, that the candidates that the candidates that we were looking at had all the technical skills that we needed. Experience, financial background, management, leadership opportunities. So, I looked at it from more of a leadership issue. What kind of person were we bringing in to lead the school corporation, and I was looking for qualities such as community builder, someone who could reach out and form alliances, engage the entire community in education.
Deal with different stakeholder groups from the students themselves to parents to taxpayers to teachers, and pull all that together into one team. It’s a huge task. I was looking for somebody who not only had the ability do it but the desire to do it. Based on that standard, Andy just jumped off the page.
Q: How do you see Andrew Melin fitting into the role in the Valpo school systems over the long haul?
Jorgenson: I think he’s a person of great passion. And, I think he’s going to fall in love with the job. I think he’ll do the job not just because he has to but because he wants to, and I think that’s who he is. So, I think he’ll be very committed to the community and to the school corporation on a genuine sense, and it won’t just be a 9-5 job.
Q: What is it about Melin that you think makes him able to deal with the challenges of this position, specifically the different constituencies and the financial troubles?
Jorgensen: He’s had experience in dealing with all those issues in the past. At Peru currently, they had to do the things that we’re going to have to do. He had to make budget cuts, he had to balance his budget. He had to introduce new problems, he had to engage the community, he had to uplift the school system. So, I think he has a track record of the ability to do it, and kind of going back to my first answer, I think he has all the skills and qualities: leadership, team building abilities to do it as well. I think he’d be the first one to say that he’s not going to do any of this by himself.He’s not going to be an indifferent leader, believe me. His hands will be on this process, but he’s going to throw a team together.
Q: As a board, what would you want the public to understand about all the things you have to go through that aren’t generally understood?
Jorgensen: I think for many people, including myself, an issue is normally pretty easy. It’s easy, because I know the answer. (laughter) The only reason someone would say it’s hard is because they don’t understand my position. I think on the school board, because there are so many factors to consider, that in many ways, it’s how do you gather all the information you need to make the decision. How do you decide the process of making the decision? How do you balance all of these interests that are in play? And then, if possible, how do you make the best decision that accommodates all those factors?
So, it makes those decisions difficult. Not easy. But everyone who has an opinion thinks it’s easy. So, I guess the challenge for us is, in part, patient, but at some point, decisive. So hopefully, we would have laid out the process we’d have used, we would have agreed on a set of facts. And so at least, folks can agree that we did it the right way even if they disagree with the outcome. Because there are some issues that we face that are hard to compromise on. So hopefully, people will be disappointed in the decision but not mad at the way it was made if there’s a difference between them. Because if they disagree with it, then maybe over the passage of time if it’d turn out to be the right decision, more and more people will buy into it.
And if we made the wrong decision, we can always change. I think that’s one of the things Andy said. He’s more than willing to say I’ve really made a mistake. I thought it was ‘x’. It wasn’t ‘x’ so let’s figure out what it should have been.