Phil Alvarado can trace his career in education back to one single moment. It was 1973, and Alvarado was leaving after his last day as an instructional aide at Oakley Elementary in Santa Maria. It was to be his last day as an educator—he was on his way to the Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara to study photography. Then Ken Milo, principal of Oakley at the time, stopped him.
“If the photography stuff doesn’t work out, you’d have a great future in education,” Alvarado recalls Milo telling him.
The photography stuff didn’t work out, and, after a while, Alvarado found himself thinking about Milo’s words.
“That really was it,” Alvarado said. “After he said that, I reflected, that yes, this is something that I wanted to do.”
That was 35 years ago, and after a long career in education, Alvarado is poised to take over as superintendent of the Santa Maria-Bonita School District.
A product of Santa Maria schools, Alvarado attended elementary school at Fairlawn, and then went to El Camino Junior High School before becoming a Saint at Santa Maria High School. After graduating from Cal Poly, and then Pepperdine, Alvarado came back to Santa Maria.
He’s taught in the classroom, worked in administration, and been part of the district’s management team. Alvarado even went back to Fairlawn for a while as principal.
“That, in itself—to be able to walk the halls as a principal that you walked as a
kindergartner—it’s pretty amazing,” Alvarado said.
Currently, Alvarado is the assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction for the district. He will officially become superintendent on Jan. 2, after Superintendent Dave Francis retires.
And Alvarado has something in common with the outgoing superintendent: He was also up for retirement this year. But he decided to stay, and not only to stay, but to apply for the now-vacant position. It was, Alvarado explained, a matter of taking care of some unfinished business.
He couldn’t leave right now, he said, not while the district is in Program Improvement status for underperforming according to federal standards, not when he thinks that he can help.
“I want to go out knowing that I gave it everything I had,”he said.
Lifting the district out of Program Improvement will be the biggest challenge facing Alvarado in his new position. He’ll be attacking the problem with the help of the District Assistance and Intervention Team (DAIT), which is California’s response to the federal mandate to improve underperforming schools.
The California Department of Education describes DAIT as a team that works with the district to examine current practices at district and school levels, evaluate those practices, and then develop an action plan to help the district move out of Program Improvement status.
The whole process will take at least two years, Alvarado said, and he’s fortunate to be able to start at the beginning.
The state budget will be another challenge for Alvarado to contend with, but he’s confident that the district will be able to weather any cuts. They’ve already saved $3.5 million by cutting some staff and replacing 40 teachers—who opted to retire this year under a beefed-up retirement plan—with 43 new teachers.
These new teachers enter at a lower pay scale, saving the district money—but that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to be great teachers, Alvarado said.
“Human resources always has top-quality candidates that want to relocate to the Central Coast,” he explained.
Alvarado has already met with the new crop of teachers and is excited about their potential.
“They’re excited,” he said. “They have energy and passion.”
The same could be said of Alvarado, who’s ready to start his new job as the new teachers are starting theirs. The only difference? He has a bit more experience. Still, he knows he’s at the start of another journey.
“I think the job of superintendent is something you grow into,” he said.
Contact Sports Editor Sarah E. Thien at sthien@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Aug 14-21, 2008.
