School district hires new superintendent

PALMER — When current Mat-Su Borough School District Superintendent Dr. Monica Goyette agreed to an amendment to mutually terminate her contract with the school district at a school board meeting on Oct. 16, 2019, the Mat-Su School Board was granted the option to help select the leader for Valley schools.

MSBSD Executive Director of Human Resources Katherine Gardner detailed the timeline of the process of searching for a superintendent that led to the 7-0 vote confirming Dr. Randy Trani’s hire at Tuesday’s special meeting of the school board. Despite Goyette’s agreement with the school board in October, the vacancy was announced on Feb. 27 with an expected period of one month to remain open.

“We had some changes that occurred through this process, most of those due to the current COVID-19 pandemic and the delays that were experienced as a result of state mandates and travel restrictions,” said Gardner. “In between that month long posting, quite a lot changed in our district.”

The school board met in executive session on April 14 to review applications from 23 candidates. The community provided input early on in the decision making process with over 1,000 responses to a survey asking for questions to deliver to candidates for superintendent.

A firm hired to help the district search for candidates identified over 1,500 possible hires that resulted in the 23 applications for the job. At a meeting on April 20, the school board decided to delay the search until May 21 or until travel restrictions were lifted and asked the state of Alaska for possible exemptions for travel restrictions to allow for candidates to see the district they were applying to lead. When travel restrictions were lifted and all but one candidate had withdrawn from consideration due to complications created by the global pandemic, the board decided to move forward with one candidate.

“We need the public involvement but we also need a new superintendent and to put it out and to when we had a perfectly good candidate who is exciting, who is capable, who has gotten excellent results, for us to throw that chance away to hire him for the opportunity to just go through the motions again and hire even later makes no sense,” said Board Member Jim Hart.

Trani was announced as the sole candidate to replace Goyette on Friday and an interview with 10 questions asked from community members was posted to the MSBSD social media accounts on Monday. Of the four members of the public who chose to offer their testimony to the board about their decision to hire Trani, Mat-Su Educators Association President Dianne Shibe offered a glowing review after speaking with teacher’s union representatives where he is currently employed, but remained critical of the school board’s dedication to listen to members of the public.

“I’m both concerned and pleased with the superintendent search. The process has been truncated to the point that the community voice has been absent almost absent. The superintendent search timeline promised a public forum during the week of April 27 and that is still posted on the website this evening, but that did not happen. Instead we got notice that a candidate hire would be voted on in four days. I’m concerned that a pattern is being set by the board that is thwarting public input things that we have expected to be acted on in a timely manner,” said Shibe. “Please consider the public’s perception of these things. The public and your employees want a board that we can have confidence in. These actions are eroding that confidence that any board needs to serve the community. My objections however do not extend to the candidate Dr. Trani.”

Trani was raised in Cordova and attended the University of Alaska Fairbanks before finishing his Bachelor’s degree in Washington. Trani credits his experience in the Alaska Teacher scholarship program that helped him pay for college as he began teaching in the Lake and Peninsula School District at Iliamna. Trani returned to Cordova to teach and has worked his way up from principal to superintendent at Corbett Schools in Oregon where his work in the district has been nationally recognized.

“This is my chance to give back to the state that changed my life and I’m super excited about that. I’m really attracted to Mat-Su partially because of its size, this is an area that I can harness the power of all the great folks that are already there and help lead changes that will benefit the 19,000 plus students at Mat-Su,” said Trani. “I would like it to be one of the best school districts in the country but we have to decide what are the markers that we are going to aim at so we know we are on a trajectory to becoming one of the best school districts in the entire country.”

Trani said that he carried two mantras and used them throughout his questions from MSBSD Public Information Officer Jillian Morrissey.

“Each of us only gets to raise our children one at a time,” said Trani and “Those of us with the most have to want for all kids what we want for our own.”

Trani said that his philosophy is to set absurd aspirations and work to achieve them. His goal in Oregon was to attain 100 percent rates of graduation, college admittance and full college scholarships, and he was successful in achieving complete graduation rates and college admittance. Each senior graduating from Corbett Schools had an average of 45,000 in scholarships as they graduated, according to Trani. Trani was specifically asked about his views on the importance of teachers.

“The people who actually deliver the instruction, the people who are actually sitting in the room or now sitting on a zoom meeting with their students spread out across the borough, those are the ones who touch the kids most directly and impact their learning the most, so profound respect for all of those people who are working directly with the students and then the rest of us, our job is to support their efforts,” said Trani.

Trani said that he wanted teachers to have reasonable class sizes, resources, and have agency and autonomy in their curriculum delivery, and that when making budget cuts in lean years he always strives to make cuts outside of the classroom first. Trani was specifically asked about his thoughts on the various charter schools and alternative schools throughout MSBSD.

“I can’t wait to visit them and it looks like you know that they are quite popular and some have been around for a while and it looks like they’re doing great things so I think that you support the non traditional schools the same way that you support the traditional schools,” said Trani.

Despite the accelerated timeline of the decision making process for the board and the quick turnaround time for school district staff to become acquainted with the candidate who was announced on Friday and hired on Monday, all members of the public who spoke shared positive feelings about Trani.

“With the board only giving the public 36 hours to examine their hiring decision and provide feedback, they’ve ensured no one can look too closely at their choice,” said Cecil Ellsworth. “Mr. Trani apparently thinks teachers should be in control of what goes on in their classroom. I wish him luck.”

As the motion came before the board, member Sarah Welton noted that she was not worried about his move from a small to large school district, because he will be surrounded with more talent around him. Welton said she liked that she heard he cares about employees and the delivery of education.

“He’s the type of individual that has educational ideas but practical sense in aplicating them, bringing up student achievement, bringing up graduation rates and making sure that no kid is a throwaway kid or left behind educationally,” said board meember Ole Larson.

Board member Kelsey Trimmer hoped that Trani would bring new ideas and perceptions to the board. Hart said that he hoped Trani could help MSBD students succeed and exceed and board member Jeff Taylor had his interest piqued by Trani’s attitude of gratitude.

“So far in his career with 30 years under his belt, he comes with some tremendous experiences and some tremendous successes but he was also very open about some things that he learned from, and I with Dr. Welton agreed with his attitude that you shouldn’t waste a good crisis, that he’s learned from those that we’ve learned from those and I love that attitude,” said Taylor.

Trani has spent 30 years as an educator after growing up in Alaska and hopes that he can give back to the students of the state of Alaska with his service as the MSBSD superintendent, which is still pending contract negotiations.The School Board will next meet May 20 at 6 p.m. for their regularly scheduled business.

“It would bring I believe a sense of completeness to what we are trying to achieve within our community and with our students,” said Board President Tom Bergey. “I believe that Dr. Trani is the person to do that and I believe Dr. Trani is a good fit.”